Australia misses out on Pluto TV

Paramount Global's strategy for FAST channels in Australia seems to be thoroughly underwhelming. A few months ago at the upfronts for Aussie TV network 10 (owned by Paramount), they talked about rolling out its FAST service within app 10 Play rather than via Pluto TV.

Yesterday they rolled out its first set of FAST channels to 10 Play. And gosh was it just an embarrassment.

As a reminder, FAST channels are 24/7 linear streaming channels delivered digitally via apps. Think of it like a standard pay TV service, but completely free. They generally offer general entertainment channels, news, music videos, movies, and more. A lot of the channels are cheap junk, but there will always be something that catches your interest - even if it is a 1983 episode of The Love Boat. You can read my extensive explainer HERE.

The channels available at launch:

Broadcast channels 10, 10Bold, 10Peach, 10Shake
Survivor
Masterchef
Little Kids
Retro Cartoons
Christmas Movies
Wipeout
Aussie Drama
Prisoner
Baywatch
Action & Adventure
The Wicked Tuna Channel
True Stories
Movie Sphere

I guess the channel playing nothing but episodes of early 1980s Australian soap Prisoner (Cell Block H) is kind-of interesting.

Now, some people will defend the lackluster launch as just being indicative of a phase one launch. But...

Today Paramount Global also announced the launch of Pluto TV in Canada:

Pluto TV offers more than 20,000 hours of movies and TV shows, and will make over 100 channels available for its Canadian rollout. The offerings will include the likes of Pluto TV Comedy, Pluto TV Drama, Pluto TV Action, and Christmas 365, along with show-dedicated channels for “NCIS,” “Hawaii Five-0,” “The Love Boat,” and “Judge Judy.”

I'm still holding out hope for a proper Pluto TV launch down under, because what has been offered so far is pretty f**king weak.

A lot of minutes

As per a study done by Nielsen, for the first 9 weeks of the US TV season, Netflix amassed 221.47 billion minutes of viewing time. Why study the first 9 weeks of the US TV season? That's an odd time period to measure the success of a streamer, right?

Well, it seems the study was paid for by CBS which was keen to tout the fact they're sitting right behind Netflix in terms of minutes viewed - 215.64 billion minutes. A great news story to tell advertisers.

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