Q. I read today that Viacom bought Pluto TV for a lot of money. So, what on earth is Pluto TV? What makes it so special to get such a big deal? And tell me about the Eye Candy channel. I hear it’s on Pluto. — Verne, Corpus Christi, Texas. 

Verne, you’re right. Viacom, which owns such basic cable networks as MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and VH1, yesterday announced that it has paid $340 million to purchase Pluto TV. The programming conglomerate says it plans to distribute Pluto TV international as well as here in the United States.

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And what is Pluto TV, you ask?

Pluto TV is an online service that has roughly 100 channels — and they are all free!

There’s a slew of news channels such as CBSN, Chedder, MSNBC and CNBC (the content is recent, but not live); a gaggle of sports channels (Stadium, Fox Sports, World Poker Tour, Big Sky Conference, and Glory Kickboxing); and a collection of comedy channels (The Onion, Cracked, FailArmy, Cats 24/7, Stand-Up TV and specialized channels for Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTrax, the sequel to MSTK, starring members of the original cast.)

There’s even a channel devoted to pot enthusiasts called THC, which advocates the legalization of the wacky weed, and a bunch of ‘geek’ channels such as CNET, Nerdist and Hive. (It’s a coincidence that I’m mentioning the two categories in the same sentence.)

And, there is the Eye Candy Channel.

The Eye Candy Channel, which is produced by a company called Kaloopy, based in Southern California (where else?), airs one video after another of a beautiful woman, in various states of undress, dancing, jumping, and sometimes, rolling around the floor in apparent imminent ecstasy. (Our feature picture for this story is in tribute to the Eye Candy, in case you were wondering.)

So as you can see, Verne, Pluto TV has many reasons to tune in. (Or, shall we say, stream in.) Viacom says Pluto TV has more than 12 million active users on devices such as Roku, Apple TV (4th generation or later), and Fire TV, and it sounds like the company is committed to expanding that number quickly. Streaming is growing rapidly and Viacom obviously believes that Pluto is the ticket to more users and more advertising dollars.

Happy Viewing!

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— Phillip Swann

Photo credit: Free photo from Pexels.com.