All eight seasons of the CW series Arrow are coming to Pluto TV on May 1, 2026. It’s a relief for viewers who were cut off after the show left Netflix on December 18, 2025. After the platform’s licensing deal with The CW’s parent companies expired.
Arrow aired for 8 seasons and 170 episodes between 2012 and 2020. The show about the billionaire vigilante that sparked a new era on The CW. It was darker and more grounded than other comic book shows, and helped create the Arrowverse.
Pluto TV will acquire Arrow from Warner Bros., making it the exclusive streaming home for the series. At least in the Americas and Europe.
This is not the only show heading across. The CW series Hart of Dixie and The 100 are also heading to Pluto TV’s streaming library. Everwood and the ABC sitcom, My Wife and Kids, will also be joining the lineup. Hart of Dixie, Arrow, and The 100 will all be available on May 1, 2026. Everwood will arrive a month later on June 1, 2026.
Surely the strategy is aimed at a younger demographic. Pluto’s recent NRG research shows “72% of Gen Z prefer content from the 2010s or 2000s.” The 18–34 audience was up 30% year over year from Jan 2025 to Jan 2026.
“Free streaming is expanding faster than any other segment,” said Cindy Holland, Chair of Direct to Consumer at Paramount Skydance. “18–34 year olds are our fastest growing audience.”
Will Gurman, SVP of Content Partnerships and Programming for Pluto TV, added that “Younger audiences don’t want new for the sake of new, they want good. Hart of Dixie, Arrow, The 100, and Everwood are shows with cultural staying power. Viewers know what they’re starting, they can binge the complete run from day one.”
The new standard for streaming is “old.”
But with subscription fatigue setting in and Netflix becoming more susceptible to errors, Pluto TV is reminding us that the new standard is the “comfort watch.”
By adding Arrow, The 100, and Hart of Dixie, Pluto TV is targeting a small, dedicated audience that the big-streamers are neglecting. In short: We can get the loud Gen Z who hates to track down a ‘hidden gem’ behind a $20/month paywall. NRG research cited by Pluto says: We don’t want it, we want the shows we grew up with, and we want it for free.
Pillaging Arrow off the “Netflix Purge” of 2025 was a real disappointment for the DC fandom. For years, Netflix was the de facto archive of the Arrowverse. But Pluto TV is actually the better fit. The “linear” channel format of Pluto TV feels like the way lots of people originally consumed Arrow on The CW, with its commercial breaks and actual sense of “tuning in,” but with the freedom of on-demand binging.
And, it underscores a shift in who is actually in control. Disney+ and Max are moving away from big-budget, short-run miniseries. This is Pluto TV buying into the 22-episode-per-season way of the 2010s. This is the “infinite content” model that keeps a person on a platform for hours. Especially if Pluto TV goes on a mercy mission for more orphaned shows like Arrow. All of the paid subscription models should be very, very nervous.
