Pluto TV hired two new executives with streaming video backgrounds to help oversee the service’s product development and programming strategy.
Shampa Banerjee, Pluto’s new chief product officer, joins the company from Eros Digital, a streaming video service that has grown to 150 million global subscribers in 135 countries. She also has a background in social through her previous work with SocialText and Ziff Davis Media, and she ran technology and product for three of AOL’s top channels.
At Pluto TV, Banerjee will be tasked with designing and developing the experience for users, distribution partners, content partners and advertisers. She’ll report to CEO Tom Ryan.
Pluto TV has also hired Scott Reich as its new senior vice president of programming. He’ll be overseeing the programming strategy behind Pluto TV’s slate of content including more than 250 live and original channels along with on-demand movies and television series.
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Reich joins Pluto TV after most recently serving as general manager at Fullscreen Media, where he helped set the strategy for the company’s subscription service and managed all original scripted and unscripted original programming, content licensing, program planning, marketing, creative services, content operations, and analytics. He was also previously vice president of programming and original content at Vevo, and worked at Fuse, Concert.TV, VH1 and Magus Entertainment, where he worked with the manager of Aerosmith.
Both are joining Pluto TV, which was acquired in 2019 by ViacomCBS, as it continues to expand internationally and iterate its ad-supported streaming platform.
Last month, Pluto TV revealed Project Venetia, a major redesign and upgrade for its free ad-supported streaming service.
The new linear user experience will let viewers choose from categories like movies, news, entertainment, sports and more easily skip through Pluto TV’s more than 250 channels to the category they want. The company also said it’s updated its on-demand UX to let viewers choose from VOD categories like binge-watch and rom coms. The page also now includes a preview mode that shows movie information and trailers before videos are played.