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Pluto TV adding over 6,300 classic TV episodes to free streamer

Pluto TV will add thousands of classic TV episodes for free, starting in November.
Pluto TV will add thousands of classic TV episodes for free, starting in November. (Photo courtesy Pluto TV)

Paramount Global’s free streaming service Pluto TV says it will add over 6,300 episodes of classic television shows.

The episodes will come from around 50 shows produced and distributed by Paramount and CBS, including:

  • The Andy Griffith Show
  • Beverly Hills, 90210
  • The Brady Bunch
  • Cheers
  • Criminal Minds
  • CSI: Miami
  • CSI: New York
  • Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
  • Everybody Hates Chris
  • Family Ties
  • Frasier
  • Girlfriends
  • Gunsmoke
  • Happy Days
  • Have Gun, Will Travel
  • Hawaii Five-O
  • Laverne & Shirley
  • MacGyver
  • Matlock
  • Mork & Mindy
  • The Odd Couple
  • One on One
  • Perry Mason
  • Rescue 911
  • Sabrina, the Teenage Witch
  • Scorpion
  • Sister, Sister
  • Star Trek: The Original Series
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
  • Taxi
  • Touched by an Angel
  • The Twilight Zone
  • Webster
  • Wings

The shows will start streaming on-demand and across a handful of new and existing Pluto TV linear content feeds in November, with content rolling out in phases through the end of the year.

Nearly all the shows slated to stream on Pluto TV are currently available on Paramount Global’s flagship streaming service, Paramount Plus. But unlike Paramount Plus, which starts at $5 a month, movies and TV shows offered on Pluto TV don’t require payment or even a login to view.

The additional content could also help boost Pluto TV’s streaming partners — including LG, Samsung, Vizio, Roku and Dish Network’s Sling TV — which offer variants of Pluto TV’s streaming content channels for their own free, ad-supported streaming services. Launching more channels and offering additional content helps make Pluto TV’s streaming channels more attractive to those third party companies.

“Pluto TV and CBS are both proven leaders delivering world-class entertainment to global audiences,” Tom Ryan, a Pluto TV co-founder who now serves as the president of Paramount Streaming, said in a statement on Monday.

Pluto TV was launched as an independent streaming service in 2013. At the time, it mostly offered linear channels of re-purposed videos found on YouTube, Vimeo and Vevo.

The service became acquired by Viacom in early 2019 and was rolled into Paramount Global when Viacom merged with CBS later that year.

Pluto TV is offered as a free streaming app across a number of platforms, including Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV (Google TV), Apple TV, PlayStation, XBox and on most popular smartphones and tablets. It is also available as a native app on a number of streaming TV brands, including Samsung, LG and Vizio. The Pluto TV website is free to access and contains the same feeds as its apps on other platforms.

As of August, Pluto TV has 70 million monthly active streaming users around the world. Paramount Global could update that figure when the company reports its quarterly earnings on November 2.

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About the Author:

Matthew Keys

Matthew Keys covers the business of broadcast and streaming TV, radio broadcasting, social media, technology and telecommunications. A journalist for over 15 years, Matthew previously worked at Thomson Reuters, KGO-TV in San Francisco, KTXL in Sacramento and McNaughton Newspapers. He received 9 California Journalism Awards between 2018 and 2020, and is a member of IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors).
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