Pluto TV, a Viacom-owned, ad-supported streaming video service, reported 18 million monthly active users at the end of July, up from 12 million at the start of the year.
During today’s earnings call, Viacom CFO Wade Davis said Pluto TV viewers are “overwhelmingly” watching on connected TVs, and that the connected TV cohort grew more than 400% year over year. Viacom has been building the content slate on Pluto TV – the service launched 28 new channels during the quarter – which is a contributing factor to user and engagement growth.
Viacom said when it acquired Pluto TV that less than 50% of the ad inventory on service was being sold. Davis today said that the absolute volume of inventory is scaling so rapidly that the service is still under 50% sold.
“We have an incredible amount of room to run from a monetization standpoint,” Davis said.
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Viacom’s fiscal third quarter was the first full quarter that Pluto TV’s results were a part of the company’s reporting. Viacom includes Pluto TV as part of its Advanced Marketing Solutions (AMS) business, and the company said that Pluto wasn’t the only bright spot for AMS during the quarter. Viacom’s Vantage targeted ad system grew more than 80%, and social and digital grew more than 50%. Overall, AMS grew 84% during the quarter.
AMS and Pluto TV were two factors that helped Viacom return to growth for domestic advertising revenue, which increased 6% during the quarter.
“Importantly, we returned Domestic Advertising Revenue to growth, which is a direct result of the strategy we have been executing for the last two years and the significant progress we have made in scaling Advanced Marketing Solutions,” said CEO Bob Bakish in a statement.
Viacom’s consolidated revenues grew 6% during the quarter, from $3.23 billion to $3.35 billion.