What happened
Tuesday was a happy day for Genius Brands International (GNUS 0.89%) as the children's entertainment specialist announced a new deal for its flagship channel. Investors were obviously pleased too; they sent the company's stock up by nearly 4% in price on the day.
So what
That morning, Genius Brands announced it had reached a deal for streaming service Pluto TV to carry its Kartoon Channel!, effective immediately. This is a fairly major "get" for the company as Pluto TV is owned by media giant ViacomCBS (PARA -3.94%), and it's a free streaming service accessible by anyone with a suitable device or TV.
Image source: Getty Images.
Genius Brands did not reveal any financial terms of the deal. It also kept mum about the duration of the arrangement.
This isn't the first collaboration between the company and ViacomCBS. An animated TV series it produces, Rainbow Rangers, has been airing on the popular ViacomCBS kids' channel Nick Jr. since 2018.
Genius Brands is clearly happy to be bringing Kartoon Channel! to its partner's streaming service. "This deal with Pluto TV provides us with an amazing opportunity to significantly expand the brand footprint to a broad audience across the U.S., as well as to build our advertiser base with best in class partners," the company quoted its president of content sales, marketing and consumer products Harold Chizick as saying.
Now what
Granted, Pluto TV isn't one of the more high-profile streaming services; it isn't even ViacomCBS's major streamer (that honor has to go to a relative newcomer, Paramount+). Still, Pluto TV certainly has an audience. Plus, it's free, so it should nicely fulfill Chizick's goals for Genius Brands.
