Viacom Announces Completion of Pluto TV Acquisition

Viacom Announces Completion of Pluto TV Acquisition

March 04, 2019 09:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

NEW YORK--Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAB, VIA) today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Pluto TV, the leading free streaming television service in the U.S.

The acquisition, previously announced on January 22, 2019 for $340 million in cash, will advance Viacom’s strategic priorities across multiple touchpoints, while solidifying Pluto TV’s leadership in the domestic free streaming video market and accelerating its growth globally.

“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.”

Founded in 2013, Pluto TV streams more than 100 channels and thousands of hours of on-demand content spanning television and movies, sports, news, lifestyle, comedy, cartoons, gaming and trending digital series. Today, it has more than 12 million monthly active users across devices, including smart TVs, streaming players, mobile devices, desktops and gaming consoles.



Pluto TV will have a crucial role in expanding Viacom’s presence across next-generation distribution platforms as a standalone free over-the-top (“OTT”) product, a direct-to-consumer cornerstone, and a partnership solution for wired, mobile and OTT distributors to serve their broadband only and video bundle subscribers on a zero incremental cost basis.

At the same time, Pluto TV accelerates Viacom’s advanced marketing solutions (“AMS”) business, serving as a very significant incremental source of targeted inventory – particularly against younger demographics – thereby strengthening Viacom’s ability to serve advertising customers and their associated agencies.

Viacom’s global scale, marketing capabilities, iconic brands and vast content portfolio will help Pluto TV strengthen its offering across important genres, solidify its leadership in the domestic free streaming video space and accelerate its growth internationally, benefiting both existing and forthcoming partners.

Pluto TV will operate as an independent subsidiary of Viacom, led by President and CEO Tom Ryan.

About Viacom

Viacom creates entertainment experiences that drive conversation and culture around the world. Through television, film, digital media, live events, merchandise and solutions, our brands connect with diverse, young and young at heart audiences in more than 180 countries.

For more information on Viacom and its businesses, visit www.viacom.com. Keep up with Viacom news by following us on Twitter (twitter.com/viacom), Facebook (facebook.com/viacom) and LinkedIn (linkedin.com/company/viacom).

About Pluto TV

Pluto TV is the leading free streaming television service in America, delivering 100+ live and original channels and thousands of on-demand movies in partnership with major TV networks, movie studios, publishers, and digital media companies. Pluto TV is available on all mobile, web and connected TV streaming devices and millions of viewers tune in each month to watch premium news, TV shows, movies, sports, lifestyle, and trending digital series. Headquartered in Los Angeles, Pluto TV has offices in New York, Silicon Valley, Chicago and Berlin.

Also, from The Streamable:

Viacom Completes Acquisition of Ad-Supported Streaming Service Pluto TV

Last month, Viacom announced that they had acquired ad-supported streaming TV service, Pluto TV for $340 million. The service offers 100 linear channels of lifestyle, news, sports, and entertainment content through partnerships with 130 media networks.

Today, the company announced that the acquisition has been completed. "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.”

Pluto TV will operate as an independent subsidiary of Viacom, led by President and CEO Tom Ryan.

Viacom plans to use their infrastructure to expand Pluto TV’s footprint in the United States and around the world. The company also hopes to expand on the platform's 100 live linear channels with their deep library genre-specific content - kids (Nickelodeon), African-American (BET), reality (MTV & VH1), and comedy (Comedy Central).

Viacom also sees Pluto TV as a marketing engine to sell their own OTT services -- Noggin, Comedy Central Now, and Nick Hits. But don't expect first-run content to appear on Pluto TV, as Viacom says they will keep that content for their own linear channels.

Pluto TV has more than 12 million monthly active users, 7.5 million of which are on connected TVs. The service can stream across a wide array of devices including Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV, Chromecast, PS4, iOS, Android, and your computer.

Last week another similar service, XUMO was rumored to be in acquisition talks with broadcasters including Sinclair Media Group. Last month, Sinclair launched their own ad-supported streaming service, STIRR.

Additionally, Tubi announced that following a $25m growth capital round, they had signed a streaming deal with NBCUniversal for 400 classic TV shows & films.

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Also, from Deadline:

Viacom Closes $340M Pickup Of Pluto TV

Viacom has closed its $340 million acquisition of free, ad-supported streaming service Pluto TV.

The acquisition, which raised eyebrows for its pricetag when it was announced in January, advances Viacom’s plan to focus on advertising as it invests in streaming. That’s the opposite approach from media peers like Disney, CBS and WarnerMedia.

“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.”

Pluto TV will operate as an independent subsidiary of Viacom, led by President and CEO Tom Ryan, the company said.

Founded in 2013, Pluto TV streams more than 100 channels in a range of genres, claiming more than 12 million monthly active users across devices. The announcement of the deal completion said Pluto TV will have a “crucial role” in expanding Viacom’s presence in streaming and that the company is a big believer in its “zero cost” appeal to customers.

Pluto is also a platform where Viacom will be able to roll out some of its ad-tech initiatives designed to improve targeting and efficiency.

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Also, from Cord Cutters News:

Viacom Has Completed Their Purchase of Pluto TV

A few weeks ago Viacom announced a deal to buy the free streaming services Pluto TV. Today Viacom announced that they have closed on that deal and now own Pluto TV for $340 million in cash. This deal will give 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.”

A few weeks ago when this deal was first announced the CEO of Pluto TV said: “Since our launch less than five years ago, and particularly over the past year, Pluto TV has enjoyed explosive growth and become the category leader in free streaming television,” said Pluto TV CEO and Co-Founder Tom Ryan. “Viacom’s portfolio of global, iconic brands and IP, advanced advertising leadership and international reach will enable Pluto TV to grow even faster and become a major force in streaming TV worldwide. Viacom is the perfect partner to help us accomplish our mission of entertaining the planet.”

Viacom has been clear they that they plan to keep Pluto TV free. Viacom’s CEO Bob Bakish went on CNBC and 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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From TheWrap Pro:

“We’ve grown fast, but we’re going to grow a heckuva lot faster now that we’re partnering up with Viacom,” CEO Tom Ryan says

The demise of traditional, ad-supported TV has been greatly exaggerated, according to Tom Ryan. The CEO of Pluto TV has tried to take the best of what old-school television has to offer — accessibility, quality programming, curation — and use it to power his Los Angeles-based streaming startup that Viacom acquired for $340 million in a deal that closed on Monday.

“We’ve grown fast, but we’re going to grow a heckuva lot faster now that we’re partnering up with Viacom,” Ryan told TheWrap.

At a time when Netflix is reinventing the way viewers watch and pay for content, Pluto TV has doubled down on the sanctity of free, ad-driven entertainment — though Ryan said Pluto TV could consider a paid.. [click here to read the article in full. Paid subscription required.]

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Also, from Newstalk Florida:

Pluto TV CEO Tom Ryan talks about the big Viacom deal

Pluto TV CEO Tom Ryan has always been a forward-thinking kind of a guy and along with his talented team, they put together one of the most successful free streaming video offerings on the market with over 12 million subscribers. Now this week their long-anticipated $340 million purchase by Viacom is complete and the future is very bright for all of us who love our Pluto TV.

Ryan spoke to me about 48 hours after the ink began to dry on his new deal with one of the media world’s biggest and most powerful players. We talked about the purchase of Pluto TV by Viacom which will keep Ryan in charge and of course what we can expect Pluto TV will be able to do with their new expansive library of content.

Before you listen to the entire interview here are a few highlights.

Ryan on what is coming to Pluto TV – “There are tens of thousands of hours of Viacom programming that has never before seen on stream services will be headed to Pluto TV and these are shows that are household names. We also are excited about our continued expansion in Europe as well our future plans of going into South America. This is all part of our mission to bring Pluto TV to the world.

Ryan on why Pluto TV and Viacom are such a great fit- We have a shared vision of how to provide quality entertainment to viewers worldwide on a free, ad-supported streaming video service. It is that shared vision that brought us together in the first place and we hope will serve us well into the future.

“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’s President/CEO. “Together with Pluto TV, we look forward to becoming a stronger partner to distributors, advertisers, content providers and audiences around the world.”

Some fast facts: Founded in 2013, Pluto TV streams more than 100 channels with over 150 content partners and on-demand content spanning television and movies, sports, news, lifestyle, comedy, cartoons, gaming, and trending digital series. You can access their content from your phone, tablet, laptop, streaming devices or gaming consoles.

Meanwhile Viacom brings to Pluto TV their portfolio of powerhouse networks MTV, MTV2, MTV, Live, MTV Classic, MTVU, VH1, Logo TV, Comedy Central, Spike, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Nick Jr, TeenNick, Nicktoons, NickMusic, TV Land CMT, CMT Music, and oh yes how about all the content from Paramount.

This deal is a very smart move by both Pluto TV and Viacom that will make for a strong streaming service that viewers worldwide will embrace. If you have not yet tried Pluto TV I highly recommend you do!

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More Nick: Nickelodeon Embarks on New Direction with its Biggest, Most Wide-Ranging Content Slate Ever!

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