Now are they DVD prints, meaning the signature butchering of music on CBS's part, among other things?
Not sure whether this tells you what you want to know, but they seem to be keeping at least some of the licensed music. In particular, I’ve heard the “Pink Panther Theme” for Safe Crackers, and the Star Trek: The Motion Picture theme in a sci-fi themed Showcase.
Having watched other Pluto channels, yes. At least the ad breaks are going where they're supposed to so far, though sometimes they stall and cut off the first minute or two of the next segment.
Frequently on the American Gladiators channel, the ad breaks cut in mid-event. That's the downside, and it is annoying. The upside is I have 24/7 channels for American Gladiators, The Price Is Right, and MST3K, and they cost me a combined $0.00.
From what I can tell, it looks like Fremantle is doing the work here. A lot of the production and imaging elements look more like BUZZR than a Pluto-curated channel:
— The Plinko chip screen bug (Pluto-curated channels usually don’t get a bug)
— Their own channel promos running at a set time of the hour (which is pretty standard in broadcasting, but Pluto-curated channels just seem to fire off their own promos at random)
— The promos have more the feel of BUZZR promos than Pluto-produced promos
— No Pluto TV ID at the top of the hour (or any TOH ID—unless you count the Fremantle signature—which is how BUZZR does it)
— Ad breaks running at the right places in the show, as you mentioned
— When the show comes back from a break, it picks up where it’s supposed to, not cutting back a few seconds like most Pluto-curated channels do
What that means in regards to the pace of new episodes, or TPIR coming to other streaming services, we don’t yet know. I’d guess they’re going to roll out new episodes at about the same pace that they do for BUZZR, for better or worse.
Yes, some of the ads are doing the same quirky things they do on other Pluto channels, but that seems to be an issue with Pluto’s ad engine, not with the channel itself. And I have noticed the issue after some ad breaks where it goes to a blank screen for a minute or 2 instead of coming back to the show. I’ve occasionally seen this sort of glitch with other new Pluto channels, but they’re usually pretty good to fix it. As a workaround, though, if it stalls on a blank screen coming out of a break, switch to another channel then switch back, & the show should be back on.
