In early 2019, Viacom went and bought Pluto TV. For those who are unaware, Pluto TV is a free streaming service that is available on most devices and it has free content available to its users.
Viacom is the same company that owns networks like Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1 Paramount Network and many others. With this acquisition, I think I have figured out what Viacom should do with their new toy, Pluto TV.
My first suggestion would be to make a channel for, well, not so much the young people, but for the generation that made Nickelodeon great. This means that maybe for a day or for the equivalent of a bloc (like Toonami on Cartoon Network back in the day, which is now on Adult Swim on Saturday nights), Viacom has a channel called “Nickelodeon Generation,” where you have a day where you show nothing but new and old Spongebob episodes, a day where you show other classic Nick cartoons such as The Fairly Odd Parents, Danny Phantom, Jimmy Neutron and any other classics, and then a day where you show traditional TeenNick shows like Drake and Josh, iCarly, Victorious and Zoey 101.
Nickelodeon’s TeenNick TV shows
The same way with a lot of other programming, you make the episodes available on-demand for 4-7 days and then the next week airs a new set of episodes for each TV series.
I think that this would be great for kids since even though the TeenNick and Nicktoons channels exist, are people really watching them? If they are, are they watching them live or on-demand?
Another option that I think should be considered is moving the TeenNick and Nicktoons channels to Pluto TV and keeping them on there. It’d be free, giving the people what they want and that Pluto TV and Viacom could probably get some good advertising revenue out of it, not to mention that if word got around quickly (and trust me, it would with this generation), the ratings could be spectacular!
My other idea would be to have an entire channel dedicated to just airing Spongebob episodes, new and old. People in my generation are obsessed with watching Spongebob, but since a lot of people in my generation do not have cable and are not obsessed with the idea of getting a live TV streaming service like Sling TV or Fubo TV, I think this would be another great option for Pluto TV and Viacom.
Granted, some of the older Nickelodeon shows like Drake and Josh (Hulu), old Spongebob (Prime Video), Danny Phantom (Hulu) and Jimmy Neutron (Hulu) are available on alternative streaming services.
By putting all of these great Nickelodeon shows on Pluto TV for free and that just contain ads, then you’re making accessible to anyone with an iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Mac, Apple TV or any other smart TV/external media device (Roku, Amazon Fire TV, etc).
