In an interview with the Unmade podcast, Rod Prosser, the local Chief sales officer in Australia for ViacomCBS (owner of Network Ten), confirmed that Pluto TV is coming to Australia.
There's no real detail beyond that. The most he suggests is that we can see it in 2022:
Look, I'm probably letting the cat out of the bag a little bit here, but I'm not quite sure of the exact launch date, but one thing I can tell you is it's coming and it won't be too far off. We're not talking years off. So, obviously we've got to get other things ready and right. But it's certainly on its way to Australia at some point.
With details so scant and a lot of local media a bit confused by what Pluto TV is, I thought this would be an opportunity to talk about what one should expect from a local Pluto TV launch.
Very simply: Pluto TV is a linear set of TV channels that run 24/7. These are virtual channels, which means that they can launch and be removed at the flick of a button - there's no infrastructure from a technology standpoint for the individual channels. In the US, there are 300+ channels with a mix of news, movies, sports, general entertainment, and international language.
Channels are a mix of content powered by Pluto TV itself (from the ViacomCBS library), along with third party companies that power some channels. For example, Loupe is an online site that sells art prints - there's a Loupe channel that is nothing but screensaver images of the art prints. Yeah, Pluto gets niche.
For a full understanding of Pluto TV, please check out this explainer of the service:
Dan Barrett
Will Australia launch with 300 channels? No. Expect it to be more like when it launched in the UK and Europe. 30-40 new channels to begin with, but with more on the way. The UK, for example, has 100+ channels now.
I'd also expect to see some local themed channels. I'm sure we'll probably eventually get a few dedicated US show channels like the dedicated Love Boat channel that operates on the US Pluto TV. Could we see channels dedicated to Aussie shows like Neighbours or Prisoner? I reckon there's a good chance.
Related: Bloomberg TV is being added to Pluto TV in Europe. Read: TV News Check
The Beatles: Get Back - a special effects heavy masterpiece
Who knew that The Beatles: Get Back doco was such a special effects heavy production?
In order to tidy up the film, director Peter Jackson employed AI learning to recreate voices of those on screen and to tidy up the video quality.
"To me, the sound restoration is the most exciting thing. We made some huge breakthroughs in audio. We developed a machine learning system that we taught what a guitar sounds like, what a bass sounds like, what a voice sounds like. In fact, we taught the computer what John sounds like and what Paul sounds like. So we can take these mono tracks and split up all the instruments we can just hear the vocals, the guitars. You see Ringo thumping the drums in the background but you don't hear the drums at all. That that allows us to remix it really cleanly."
Jason Perlow
TeeVee Snacks
- Apple TV+ series The Truth Be Told will be back for a third season. Read: Deadline
- Netflix show Outer Banks is also back for a third season. Read: TV Line
- One of my favourite new shows of the year The Sex Lives of College Girls will be back for a second season on HBO Max. Read: THR
- Dragula will return for season five on Shudder. Read: Deadline
- Chris O'Dowd will star in a new Apple TV+ series The Big Door Prize. Read: Variety
Sylvester Stallone is coming to TV
In what I believe is his first ever regular TV series role, Sylvester Stallone will star in the new Taylor Sheridan series Kansas City.
The series falls under the deal Sheridan has with Paramount+ and while he's on board as a writer on the show, he won't be doing the day-to-day showrunning duties. That falls to the great Terrence Winter (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire).
My enthusiasm for this is at a billion percent. Could this be a return to the promise of Cop Land, giving Stallone an opportunity to really show his acting chops in a later-life performance? I hope so.
The series, set in present day, follows legendary New York City mobster Sal (Stallone), who is faced with the startling task of reestablishing his Italian mafia family to the modernized, straight-shooting town of Kansas City, Missouri. There, Sal encounters surprising and unsuspecting characters who follow him along his unconventional path to power.
Joe Otterson
Colin Farrell is coming to TV
Confirming the rumour from a few months ago, Colin Farrell will reprise the villainous Penguin character as depicted in the upcoming movie The Batman, playing him in a new Penguin-focused limited series.
The Batman will have two spin-off shows. This Penguin show and a prequel focused on the Jim Gordon character. This is the trend for large IP shows made for WarnerMedia. The recent DC superhero film The Suicide Squad has the upcoming companion show Peacemaker (due in January) and Dune was supposed to also have a companion series, which was mooted to go into production for release after the first film, but one presumes that will now be timed with the second film.
All of these shows are being made for the WarnerMedia-owned HBO Max.
Joe Otterson
Trailer Park
Snowpiercer returns for season 3 on Jan 24.
Days of Our Lives: A Very Salem Christmas debuts on Peacock Dec 16.
Action Pack debuts Jan 4 on Netflix.
Rebelde debuts Jan 5 on Netflix.
Bubble debuts April 28 (long lead time) on Netflix.
What's next? Tomorrow.
