• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, February 25, 2021

Free, ad-supported streaming service Pluto TV and Major League Baseball will launch an MLB-branded channel on March 2.

The channel will offer more than 200 hours of classic games and highlights from the Major League Baseball Film & Video Archive, with quarterly refreshes.

Programming includes World Series and All-Star games and milestones, and episodes of “Epic Moments,” “Baseball’s Seasons” and “Cathedrals of the Game,” in addition to curated clips and playlists featuring top plays.

Pluto’s existing lineup of 20-plus sports channels includes NFL Channel, Major League Soccer, PGA Tour, Bellator MMA, and Pac-12 Insider.

Building out a library of top-quality sports content is a key priority for Pluto TV, according to Will Gurman, VP, global content partnerships at the service.

Pluto TV owner ViacomCBS announced the new channel during Wednesday’s Streaming Investor Day presentation.

In part driven by new distribution deals with Samsung and Google, the AVOD’s global monthly active users (MAUs) rose by 80%, to 43 million — including a 34% increase in domestic MAUs, to 30.1 million — in Q4 2020.

The company did not report specific ad revenue for Pluto TV, but said its growth contributed to an 8% overall ad revenue increase for its cable network unit.

Pluto TV is accessible on all major mobile, connected TV and web-based devices.