Paramount’s Pluto AVOD Service Finally Comes To Canada

Ad-supported streaming service Pluto, which has been one of ParamountPARA
Global’s secret weapons in its efforts to become, you know, global, has finally launched in the country to the north of its home market.

“This year has marked tremendous growth for Pluto TV, having expanded to the Nordics in May and now to Canada,” said Pluto EVP and international GM in a release. “As we are now in more than 30 countries and territories, we are one step closer to our mission to entertain the planet.”

The service will feature 110 themed linear FAST (free, ad-supported) channels, including some built around durable Paramount franchises such as CSI, NCIS, and South Park, as well as 20,000 hours of on-demand programming.

The Canadian version of Pluto also will have some Canuck-centric features, including more than 30 channels of local content. That batch includes including six Home & DIY channels, four Food channels, and news and opinion programming from Global News focused on more than a dozen cities and provinces.

Local programming includes series such as Love It or List It, Property Brothers, Bryan Inc., Border Security, and Chopped Canada. It also includes a series of French-language channels that serve particularly the audiences in Quebec. Those channels include Dora TV FR, Tortues Ninja TV, South FR, Doctor Who FR, Degrassi FR, Alerte a Malibu, and Les Nouveaux Detectives.

The company called the Canadian platform its’ most robust foreign deployment yet. Pluto is the most-watched FAST service in the United States, with 1% of all domestic viewership according to Nielsen figures.

The service in Canada is a partnership with Toronto-based Corus Entertainment, which has a large library of food and lifestyle programming and operates Global News.

“Our strategy has always been rooted in placing more content in more places, and Pluto TV further advances this goal,” said Corus EVP, Broadcast Networks Troy Reeb.

Paramount streaming executives have talked in the past about how Pluto has helped them learn new international markets and audiences, fine-tune programming for their subscription-based Paramount+, and cross-promote in ways that can help increase uptake.

Pluto, which launched in 2013, is already distributed in about 30 countries and territories, including the United States, Latin America, Central Europe and the Nordic countries of Europe.