Pluto TV has become Canadians’ go-to free streaming service — and the best is yet to come
Do you long for pajama Sundays, where you settle down for a day on the couch to watch a marathon of your favourite sitcoms from years past? While streaming has certainly made many TV shows available at the click of a button, there is a sense of comfort in turning on the television and allowing someone else to curate your entertainment choices. “Pluto is redefining the television landscape in that they’re bringing together recognizable premium brands and franchises — the best of the best — into one user-friendly place, and it is all for free,” says Katrina Kowalski, senior vice president of international content programming at Pluto TV.
Pluto TV boasts more than 150 channels, allowing the viewer to pick their programming according to a series, a theme — say, romance or true crime — or a pop-up channel usually related to an event or holiday. Want to watch a non-stop stream of Family Ties? Cue up endless hours of Alex P. Keaton. A leisurely afternoon of Crime Scene Investigation? Just pick your city. Need to laugh at world events, instead of experiencing the existential dread that comes with the news? Turn on the South Park channel. (Or how about watching Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” on repeat for 24 hours? You know someone did.) On occasion, the service will even preview upcoming Paramount+ series. “We have sneak-peeked things like Special Ops: Lioness and Twisted Metal,” says Kowalski. “It’s a really great way to offer something that is premium and behind a paywall, to sample for free.”
Pluto TV launched in Canada on December 1, 2022, and has in its first year become the go-to spot for fans of classic TV series like Baywatch, Gunsmoke and Happy Days. “Classic TV nostalgia, those categories really shine for us,” says Kowalski. In fact, the service recently added a Star Trek channel, which airs all three seasons of the original Star Trek series and seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation. And, this fall, new channels from the vault include Mad About You, The Facts of Life and Who’s The Boss? “Pluto TV is a great way to lean back into that comfort viewing, knowing exactly what you’re getting when you tune in,” she adds. “But in other cases, the audience might not know what Gunsmoke is, or they may never have watched Star Trek before. It’s new to you if you haven’t seen it, so you can discover a new world of entertainment as well.”
It’s not all nostalgia on Pluto TV. “We know that Canadians want Canadian content,” says Kowalski. “We have 14 news channels from Corus. There’s the Global National News Channel, but then we also have 13 local news channels. We have The Weather Network. And, outside of news and weather, we also have great home and DIY content from Corus Studios. We have French-language content and we have kids’ content, like Arthur, as well as favourites like The Red Green Show. We’ve got so many Canadian programs. It is something that the Canadian team wants to make sure of — that we have a really robust offering.”
Canadian Pluto also featured the world premiere of Out TV. “We were thrilled to welcome that because what is important to Canadians is a diverse offering, and that is something that is really important to Pluto and Paramount as well,” says Kowalski. “We were really proud of that to have the world premiere.”
If it all sounds like television in the not-so-distant days, you are not wrong. The programming is ad-supported, although the commercial breaks are fewer in number and shorter than on broadcast television. And, on the linear channels, the shows air when they are programmed. This means no pausing, no recording and no do-overs until the season eventually loops around. “You jump in and you jump out, just like you do with traditional TV,” says Kowalski, adding that, “Of course we have our video-on-demand offering, where you can watch programming from the beginning.” May the old-school bingeing begin.
Pluto TV is available for free, with no registration or subscription required. Canadian users can watch Pluto TV via web at www.pluto.tv, via the Pluto app for Apple, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Android TV, Samsung, LG, Tizen, Hisense, and Xbox devices, and via mobile apps on the App Store and Google Play.