Pluto TV is expanding its news offerings. The free ad-supported TV (FAST) service announced last month that it was adding a “60 Minutes” channel, and that channel has now launched. The venerated news magazine has been a staple of Pluto’s corporate sibling CBS for 55 years, and now viewers have another streaming option to enjoy “60 Minutes” content via its own dedicated channel.
The new Pluto channel will not feature live or first-run episodes, instead, the “60 Minutes” channel will carry a collection of over 400 segments from the show’s archives. The segments will be drawn from episodes from a period between 2009 to 2019. Initial offerings will include the first interview with a retired Navy SEAL who was part of the team that carried out the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, a range of wildlife-focused reports, the first interview with then-President-elect Trump after his election, and a sitdown with then-President-elect Obama.
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 which moved to Paramount+ after Quibi folded in 2020. That show, however, was based on original programming rather than archival footage.
“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 when the channel was announced.
Full episodes of “60 Minutes” can be streamed via Paramount+, which also currently offers complete archival access to the past 10 seasons. Content from “60 Minutes” currently streams on the free, ad-supported CBS News Streaming Network.
Pluto TV 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, and Cheddar.
Pluto TV has been busy expanding its offerings so far this fall. The platform recently launched channels dedicated to “CSI: Miami” and “CSI: New York,”as well as a unique “Ed Sullivan Show” channel.
Pluto TV continues to add big-name news programming and scripted content to its platform, and viewers have been taking notice. The service grew to nearly 70 million active users in the second quarter of 2022, and adding content like the “60 Minutes” channel should help it continue to expand.
