Viacom CEO Robert Bakish has talked a bit about the future of Pluto TV, which they agreed to acquire for 340 million last month, as reported by TechCrunch. The company plans to use the service to offer content from their vast library for free with ads, as well as offer paid subscriptions for premium content, which would be a first for Pluto TV. Read more ›
Viacom is continuing to slowly bring their networks to Amazon Fire TV devices, with a new VH1 app as the latest arrival. The app is similar to their previous apps and requires activation through a television service provider in order to watch all full-length content, but the app does have some completely free content for those who can’t activate the app.
Viacom started by releasing a Comedy Central app for the Fire TV and quickly moved on to releasing an MTV and BET app. After taking a break they recently released a Nicelodeon and Nick Jr. app. Spike TV, Logo TV, and CMT are the remaining Viacom properties that have Amazon apps which have not yet been released on the Fire TV, so we may see those arrive shortly.
Similar to NBCUniversal, Viacom has been on a bit of a new app spree for the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, with the latest arrival being a new BET app. As you’d expect, the layout and functionality of the app is identical to other Viacom apps like Comedy Central, which I reviewed in detail, and MTV. Unlike most apps released by media conglomerates, Viacom’s apps actually have quite a bit of free content, including full episodes, that you can watch without needing to activate the app with a cable provider. Other Viacom properties that we’ll hopefully see Fire TV apps for in the future include Spike TV, Logo TV, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., CMT, and VH1.
MTV has brought their official app to to the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick. The app is nearly identical to the Comedy Central app released last week, since both networks are owned by Viacom. There is some free content available in the MTV app, the majority is going to require you to activate the app through a cable provider. The app breaks down the content into MTV, MTV2, and MTV News sections. There is also a Favorites section where you can find shows you’ve marked as favorites and episodes you started but didn’t finish. Whether you activate or not, you’re going to be watching both pre-roll ads and intermittent ads within most videos. The app has the same sporadic episode availability as the Comedy Central app, so while some shows have entire seasons available to stream, others are limited to just a few episodes.
Comedy Central has just brought their content to the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick by way of a new official Comedy Central app. The app is available on all Fire TV models, new and old. The app allows you to login with a cable provider to unlock all available videos, but there is a small amount of free content, including full TV show episodes, even if you don’t activate the app with a cable provider. Regardless of whether you’re logged in with a cable provider or not, you’re going to see ads, both at the start of and during full episodes. There are also numerous short clips throughout the app, which are all available without activation.
The number of episodes available, both with and without activating the app, is a bit inconsistent from show to show. If the app is activated, some shows had every episode ever made available, like all 3 seasons of Chappelle’s Show. Other shows only had all episodes from the latest season, like Tosh.0, while others had as little as just one episode available, like Comedy Underground with Dave Attell. There are similar inconsistencies with free content that doesn’t require activation. Some shows had no free episodes available, while others had several free episodes. Read more ›
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