ViacomCBS Uses Available Space on Pluto TV

Streaming services are plentiful nowadays. We could probably fill Speaking Human with new services alone. That said—CBS All Access announced plans to morph into Paramount+ prior to the Super Bowl. We even talked about it on episode #138 of the Speaking Human podcast. What you may not know, is that ViacomCBS owns the free streaming service called Pluto TV. CBS is using Pluto TV, which had 28 million subscribers as of late 2020, to build awareness and viewership of its new series and simultaneously promote Paramount Plus in the process. Pluto TV was purchased by ViacomCBS in January of 2019 for $340 million and is ad supported, so it’s essentially like watching live cable television. If you’re cool with commercials, Pluto TV might be the best streaming service for you, especially if you like CBS programming.

The question is—will the two streaming services (Paramount+ and Pluto TV) be competing for subscribers at some point in the future or will they live harmoniously together in the solar system of streaming content?