Launching a product on April Fool’s Day is a gamble, but 10 years ago Pluto TV did just that. In the 10 years since that happened, Pluto TV has gone from a potential punchline to an industry leader, proving it’s not a joke and should be taken seriously. In the beginning, the platform was all short-form content, primarily distributed across mobile and web. As time progressed, the platform evolved from web and mobile to TV, which is primarily where the viewing is today. So, how does Pluto TV exist if it’s free? The streaming platform has an advertising-based business model, which means it makes money by showing commercials within the video content or when switching between channels. What’s different about Pluto TV is the ads? A typical one-hour network show usually contains around 20-28 commercials, depending on the network and time slot, with the average ad time per hour being 12-17 minutes. On a typical one-hour show on Pluto TV, there are typically 2-3 commercials lasting around 30 seconds each. That’s a significant chunk of time when it comes to commercial interruption. If you’re the type who doesn’t want any ads at all, you can always use a free browser extension like Multi Skipper, which can automatically fast forward through ad breaks on sites like Hulu, Netflix, Pluto and Peacock.
