Earlier this week Viacom announced a deal to buy Pluto TV for $340 million. This instantly raised concerns that Pluto TV would become a paid service. Viacom’s CEO Bob Bakish went on CNBC and reportedly 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.”
Does this mean there will be no changes to Pluto TV? We don’t know. There will hopefully be more Viacom-owned content added including Paramount movies and TV shows now that Viacom owns Paramount.
Viacom did keep the head of Pluto TV in place a move that should help address concerns for many Pluto TV fans. As for a potential paid streaming service from Viacom, Bakish announced that they still plan to launch their own subscription streaming service separate from Pluto TV.
For now, I would not look for anything to change on Pluto TV. There are still contracts in place that need to be honored, and we will likely see Pluto TV continue to add new content from Viacom and other places in the future.
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