Paramount and CBS News are preparing to launch a streaming product featuring one of their most popular and important franchises: The long-running newsmagazine show “60 Minutes.”
According to Variety, a new “60 Minutes”-based channel will soon launch on the free, ad-supported TV (FAST) streaming service Pluto TV, with the channel scheduled to launch sometime this year. The new channel will include footage from across the show’s archives, which date back to 1968.
“60 Minutes” programming will “form the bulk” of the new channel, according to the Variety report.
“The channel will allow us to share our broadcast and historic archive with the wider world,” 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens reportedly told colleagues in a memo.
Pluto TV, like CBS, is a part of the Paramount Global and is one of multiple streaming services under the corporate umbrella, including Paramount+, SHOWTIME, BET+, and Noggin.
Pluto TV currently has a “News + Opinion” tab, which offers channels from Pluto TV News and CBS News, as well as local CBS News channels from New York and Los Angeles, and offerings from non-CBS news outlets like CNN, NBC, The TYT Network, Newsmax, and Cheddar.
This is not the first attempt at a “60 Minutes”-branded streaming product, as the short-lived,short-form streaming service Quibi had offered a “60 Minutes” show, one that moved to Paramount+ after Quibi folded in 2020. That show, however, was based on original programming rather than archival footage.
Paramount+ currently features the last ten seasons of full episodes of the linear “60 Minutes” show, while one season of the newsmagazine is available on-demand on Pluto TV right now.
Pluto TV may not be as much of a household name as many of its streaming rivals, but the service is hugely popular, helping to contribute to an 18% rise in the popularity of the FAST market between 2020 and 2022.
At the end of the first quarter of this year, Paramount reported that Pluto TV had 68 million active global monthly users, an increase of four million from the previous quarter.
