Viacom bolsters Pluto TV with seven new channels

RuPaul’s Drag Race

Viacom has further bolstered its Pluto TV AVOD with seven new channels.

The most noteworthy of these channels is one solely dedicated to VH1’s popular series RuPaul’s Drag Race, which is made up of episodes from the show’s first five seasons. There are also channels dedicated to other VH1 series Love & Hip Hop and Black Ink Crew.

The full list of new channels that will run on the streamer are: VH1 Unscripted, VH1 Hip Hop Family, BET Her, BET Homecoming, VH1 Love & Hip Hop, VH1 Black Ink Crew and VH1 RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Amy Kuessner, SVP of content partnerships at Pluto TV, said that the new channels are a part of the company’s efforts to “grow and diversify our content offerings to better serve cultural audiences with content that they know, love and relate to.”

Viacom acquired Pluto TV for $340m earlier this year, and the company says that the number of monthly users has increased by around 50% since January. Most recent figures indicate an active monthly user base of 18m users, as of July.

In a recent interview with TBI, Pluto TV co-founder Tom Ryan indicated that despite Viacom’s ownership and channel partnerships, the platform would continue launching distinct non-Viacom channel offers.

“This is not Viacom Direct or Viacom Now – this is Pluto TV,” he said. “Viacom is a very important content partner across a variety of areas of our business including ad sales, distribution and international expansion, but by no means is Pluto TV becoming a streaming outlet for Viacom content.”

Since acquiring the streamer, Viacom has launched 28 new channels including three My5 channels in the UK and a complete suite of 11 Spanish-language channels for a dedicated Pluto TV Latino offer. In total, Pluto TV now has over 200 linear channels, with many based around flagship brands such as Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and BET.