- Whenever I highlight some other channel
other than this one in my videos, I get a lot of comments.
A lot of people saying things along the lines of,
"Well, what about Pluto TV?
"Talk more about Pluto TV.
"Pluto TV is amazing."
Well, all right then, today let's talk about Pluto TV.
This is definitely a trending channel.
Not that it's brand new,
but things are on the upswing.
It's got tons of growth
and tons of future potential as well.
So today, we're gonna go over
a little background about Pluto TV,
what it is, how it works, what you'll find on it,
and how you can decide whether you want
to jump on this bandwagon
or stick with whatever other streamer you're using
at the moment.
Because yeah, there is a deciding factor,
but we will get there in just few minutes.
For now, let's dive into Pluto TV.
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So what is Pluto TV?
Well, it's a streaming service, a free streaming service,
that's owned by ViacomCBS.
Now, why do we care who owns it?
Well, because it's owned by ViacomCBS.
So let's compare and contrast with something like HBO Max.
Okay, so AT&T bought WarnerMedia
and all of the properties
that came along with that including HBO
and for a few years AT&T seem to struggle
to figure out what to do with that entertainment platform
and with these entertainment brands.
Well, ViacomCBS has been in the game for a long time.
So, I feel like they have a little bit better handle
on exactly what to do with something like Pluto TV
and that kinda shows.
With Pluto TV,
they've really made quite the streaming channel
and it is paying off.
Pluto has grown a ton recently.
Back in 2018, they made $70 million in ad revenue.
Not bad, right?
70 million bucks.
Well, in an industry like this,
nah, it's not that much money,
but by 2022, they will be at over a billion dollars
in ad revenue just on Pluto TV.
Wow and that is growth.
So they've grown a lot recently
and like I said, they have a lot of room left to grow
in the future as well.
So take this summer for instance,
we're in June now
but even through the rest of this summer,
they're gonna be adding a ton of movies.
They already have the "Hunger Games" series
and "Charlie's Angels" that went up this month.
They're also over the summer getting "Minority Report,"
"Shaft," "Total Recall," "Forrest Gump,"
"Face Off," and more.
And that's just on the on demand side of things.
On the live TV side of things,
they just added three more channels to their lineup,
Pluto Courtroom, "Jersey Shore," and "Bar Rescue," yeah.
So let's talk about the channels actually.
Let's go ahead and dive into Pluto TV and take a look at it.
So I'm gonna be looking at Pluto TV on my Roku TV,
whatever you're using,
whether it's a Fire Stick or a Chromecast, whatever.
It's gonna look very similar,
so don't worry about that too much.
But yeah, I'm gonna be using it on my Roku.
So, if we get in here,
it's gonna start me out right away on the Live TV tab.
So you can see right up top, Live TV versus On Demand.
As far as how you navigate around this
and once I'm in here watching a show,
if I press the up and down button
that's going to channel surf.
Okay, so this is very similar
to what you remember from cable or satellite, whatever.
You can channel surf on Pluto TV.
Some people may miss that in the age of streaming,
so you can do it
or you can hit the back button
and that will bring up the menu here.
So now, I can scroll through the channels,
I can go over to the channels or the genre selection here.
I can also hit the back button one more time
and that takes me up to the top Live TV or On Demand.
Let's start with the Live TV one.
Okay so Live TV, you can see,
like I said we've got a bunch of different categories here.
So I went through
and counted how many (chuckles) channels
are in each category and it's pretty ridiculous.
Okay, so if we start...
Okay, Featured is actually pulling
from these other different categories,
but we've got Movies, Entertainment, News, Reality, Crime,
Comedy, Classic TV, Home DIY, Explore, Sports,
Gaming and Anime, Music, Espanol, Kids, and Local.
And if we add all of these together,
it comes to a whopping 294 channels,
not bad at all.
Okay, so this is going to, just in terms of channel count,
rival any cable or satellite company out there.
Now, the difference is you're not getting the same channels
that you would on those cable and satellite providers.
But the good news about it
is that even though the channels are different,
the content sometimes is very similar.
So for instance,
if I go to this Reality tab here
and click over to "Jersey Shore,"
there's an entire channel devoted to "Jersey Shore."
Now, that is not MTV, right?
It's not the MTV channel, but it's MTV content.
And so if you love the "Jersey Shore"
or if you love, oh gosh, "Rescue 911,"
whatever the case (chuckles) may be for that,
then you're gonna be able to find channels dedicated
to just one show, this happens quite a bit
or there are some like VH1 I Love Reality
that are going to be a little bit more broad
in what they show.
But anyway, the point here is you can see VH1 content,
MTV content, Spike, "Dog the Bounty Hunter."
Anyway, so you don't have to wait
for these shows to come up like you did on a cable network,
you can just go ahead and watch it 24 hours a day.
"Dog the Bounty Hunter," I don't know, whatever you're into.
And that's gonna be the case in pretty much every category.
So go up here to News and Opinion.
You're not going to get CNN,
but you will get the latest news from CNN.
So they're gonna pull in clips and highlights
and walk you through the news of the day,
but it's not the same as being able
to tune into the actual CNN network.
You can even get CNET News.
Although, why you would go anywhere else for tech news?
It's just beyond me.
Like and subscribe.
So 294 channels, all commercial supported
so it's still free of charge.
And like I said, this looks and feels and smells similar
to what you would get on your cable or satellite provider.
So if you've cut the cord
but you like the channels that you had before,
you like the channel surfing
and you like just having something on in the background,
then Pluto TV is fantastic for that
with its Live TV service.
Let's go ahead and pop-up to the On Demand.
So, On Demand is stuff you can watch any time.
It's not on a timetable
like you get with the Live TV schedules
and Pluto TV has a pretty good On Demand lineup here.
So in this case, they also have categories similar
to what we saw over on the Live TV side:
Most Popular Movies, Top TV Series, and whatnot,
but it's almost similar to Netflix
in just how many categories they have.
So I'm going to just press my down button
and let's see how long it takes us to get through this.
(gentle serene music)
(Craig exhales)
All right, by my count, that was about what?
17 seconds.
And (chuckles) that's a lot of content on here,
I did not bother to count it like I did the channels
on the Live TV side.
But you can see, like I mentioned before,
they've added some titles
that are very attractive to people.
So, we've got the "Hunger Games" series,
we've got "Colombiana," "Noah," whatever, "Ninja turtles,"
again, whatever you're into, right?
It's on here.
So as you can see as I'm flipping through here,
it's a lot like Netflix or like Tubi or anything else
where most of the stuff you probably won't be interested in,
but there are going to be a lot of titles here
that you are interested in.
So I talked in a previous review about Plex.
Now, Plex.
I love Plex.
You can go back and watch my review on Plex.
It's fantastic.
It's got a similar setup,
but they allow you to bring in your own library of stuff
which I think is absolutely amazing.
But when it comes to the Live TV
and the On Demand offerings,
I think Pluto TV pretty easily has them beat,
they just doesn't let you pull in your own library.
So, Plex is still (lips smacking) awesome.
But yeah, I do like what I'm being offered here on Pluto.
It's really great, contentwise.
One last thing to talk about on the interface is,
over here on the left-hand side,
if I keep pressing to the left
there's a Search and a Settings menu option here.
Now, the Settings is not actually Settings.
(Craig chuckles)
These are little things that will send you online
to get more information about whatever it is,
whether it's a support, or privacy,
Don't Sell My Personal Information,
it's all just telling you to visit here, visit here.
So, there aren't any settings that you can change on here.
You're gonna have to rely
on whatever TV you're using to change settings.
And then on the search bar,
the search actually works pretty darn well.
What's interesting is here on my Roku,
I can use the voice search on my Roku
as long as I'm in this search field.
So when I press this, I already searched the "Hunger Games,"
so what could I search for that I saw on demand?
"Tomb Raider."
So there you go.
As long as you're searching within that bar,
you can use the voice search.
Obviously, you can go ahead and type it out as well,
but there are your results for your search.
Now, it doesn't work perfectly.
I've seen some stuff in the On Demand menu
that did not pull-up when I tried to search for it.
I don't know why,
maybe it's just too new in the system to be recognized.
Not sure exactly.
But for the most part,
the search function does work pretty darn well
better than the settings.
Then there you have it.
That's Pluto TV.
That's what you're gonna get for free.
And that's why it's awesome, it's free.
The content selection, not bad, not bad at all.
The navigation, pretty easy once you get the hang of it.
It's not super intuitive,
but it'll just take a few minutes of trial and error
and you'll get the hang of it.
So the question now is,
would Pluto TV replace your cable or satellite service?
I say yes, but hey, I'm a diehard cord cutter.
I think this is better (chuckles) for free
than what you were paying for,
for cable or satellite.
The next question then is
whether you might like Pluto TV better
than the paid stuff that you get like Netflix, Disney Plus,
HBO Max, whatever the case is,
is Pluto TV a replacement for those things?
Well, the question you need to ask yourself
is what do you value more, your time or your money?
Because while this is a free service,
you do pay for it with your time
because you are watching commercials.
Now, I didn't clock the commercials necessarily,
but my impression is that you'll watch
slightly fewer commercials than you would have
with cable or satellite, but not a ton less.
It's not like it gives you one commercial every 15 minutes
and then you're back onto your show.
It is gonna show you four, five, six commercials
during those breaks.
And so it's, like I said,
maybe not quite as long as you were doing
with cable and satellite,
but still you are gonna spend some time watching commercials
with this one.
Again, whether that's worth it to you,
totally up to you and your situation.
What do you want to keep more of?
Your time and just make your way
through whatever title you're watching
or your money, save the money and get rid of Netflix,
get rid of HBO Max
and just go with the free service like this.
I'll be interested to hear what you guys say,
your preferences.
Please hit the comments below and let me know.
I know that you love Pluto TV,
I've heard you all say it, but what do you think?
Is it worth the amount of time you spend on commercials?
Let me know with your opinions and on your way down there,
don't forget to like and subscribe.
Make sure you subscribe so that you can join me every Friday
around 2:00 PM Eastern for the live stream that we do
with the giveaways, the games, the Q&As,
all that fun stuff.
I will see you all there.
Thanks for watching.