Pluto TV has quickly become one of the most popular free cord cutting services in the United States. Now they are celebrating their 5th anniversary as they continue as one of the leaders in the world of cord cutting.
In a statement on Twitter, Tom Ryan, the CEO, and co-founder of Pluto TV, said:
Five years ago, on April Fool’s Day 2014, we launched @PlutoTV , a streaming service that is linear in the age of on-demand and free & ad-supported in the age of paid subscriptions. Today we are the leading free streaming TV service in America!
— Tom Ryan (@thomasryan) April 2, 2019
This happens about one month after Viacom completed its purchase of Pluto TV. Viacom paid $340 million in cash for the free streaming service. The deal gives Viacom full control over Pluto TV and its future. For some time now Viacom has hinted at plans for a free streaming service. Now it seems that buying Pluto TV is how they will do it.
“The completion of this deal marks an exciting next step in Viacom’s evolution and a powerful opportunity for us to extend our consumer reach and broaden our ability to add value across the industry as the media landscape continues to segment,” said Bob Bakish, Viacom president and CEO. “Together with Pluto TV, we look forward to becoming a stronger partner to distributors, advertisers, content providers and audiences around the world.”
Viacom plans to keep Pluto TV free. Viacom’s CEO on CNBC pushed the idea of how Pluto TV as a free service is important to Viacom. “We love how (Pluto TV) fits in with over 12 million active users,” Bakish said. “We have a ton of (ads) to sell and that is where Pluto TV comes in.”
For now, I wouldn’t look for anything to change in the short term. Hopefully, this means more Viacom content will be coming to Pluto TV soon.
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