Skydance’s free streaming service has shrunk.
Pluto TV has about 75 million monthly active users, Skydance — formerly Paramount Skydance — told shareholders on Monday as it reported third-quarter earnings.
The context: Pluto TV had 89.6 million monthly active users in 2025, Business Insider reported in April, based on a town hall presentation by Paramount streaming finance chief Elizabeth Wright.
In the April meeting, Paramount streaming employees were told that Pluto TV grew by 5.4 million users in 2025, which would put the 2024 user count at around 84.2 million. The presentation slides, viewed by Business Insider, didn’t specify whether those figures were averages for the fiscal year or year-end totals.
Previously, Paramount had told investors in May 2023 that Pluto TV had reached the “milestone” of 80 million monthly active users.
Here are snapshots of how Pluto TV’s user base has changed, based on company announcements and Business Insider’s reporting:
- 2023: 80 million monthly active users (Company announcement in May 2023)
- 2024: 84.2 million monthly active users (Internal slide deck)
- 2025: 89.6 million monthly active users (Internal slide deck)
- 2026: 75 million monthly active users (Company announcement in November)
This drop poses a challenge for Skydance and its CEO, David Ellison, who merged Paramount with Warner Bros. Discovery last month in hopes of building a streaming business that can compete with industry leaders like Netflix and Disney.
Before buying WBD, Paramount had focused on merging the tech platforms for Paramount+ and Pluto TV in a process known internally as convergence, Business Insider previously reported. The first phase of that convergence process is “largely completed,” Skydance’s CEOs told shareholders Monday, adding that Pluto now runs on the same tech as Paramount+ on all major streaming platforms.
Putting Pluto and Paramount+ on one tech platform “lowers our cost to operate, speeds up product development, and gives us shared personalization and monetization capabilities across our free and subscription offerings,” Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz said in their shareholder letter.
In September, Pluto’s interface got a major refresh that put its on-demand content front and center, rather than highlighting its signature always-on live channels. Skydance’s shareholder letter said that this change and upgrades, such as improved personalization, are “already improving the user experience.”
Two Paramount streaming employees said they thought the layout change could have contributed to the drop in monthly active users.
Pluto’s rivals have gained share
Pluto TV was early to free ad-supported streaming TV, known as “FAST.” It launched in 2014, around the same time as rival Tubi, and was bought in 2019 by Viacom (which later merged with CBS and then eventually became Skydance).
Pluto TV first appeared on Nielsen’s monthly streaming charts in July 2022, with a 0.8% share of US TV viewing. Pluto’s individual share peaked at 1% in February 2025, after which Nielsen began reporting it alongside Paramount+. Paramount’s streaming share was 2.3% in August — the same level it was in March 2025.
Tubi has taken off in that span, rising from 1% of US TV viewing in February 2023 to 1.9% in August. The Fox-owned free streamer has grown from 74 million monthly active users in September 2023 to 110 million, as of August.
The Roku Channel, another rival free streamer, rose from a 1.1% US TV share in May 2023 to a 2.9% share in August, putting it fifth behind YouTube, Netflix, Disney’s streamers, and Amazon’s Prime Video. Roku has over 100 million households across its platforms, Fox said Friday after buying the company.
YouTube has become by far the most-watched streamer on US TVs, soaring from a 5.7% share in May 2021 to a 15.8% share in August, according to Nielsen. Its next closest rival, Netflix, is at 7.7%.
