Why TV Everywhere Will Soon Be the New Norm

TV Everywhere

Summertime is approaching and with it vacations and travel start to ramp up. It’s during these times that taking TV on the go with you is the easiest and most convenient way to stay on top of those programs and live streaming events that you just don’t want to miss. Pay TV providers offer TV Everywhere services and with that comes a myriad of content available to subscribers on their phones or tablets and anywhere and everywhere they go outside of their homes. More and more people are catching on, but did you know that next summer there could be a whole new batch of happy travelers watching that game live while they wait for their flights in the airport lobby? The TV Everywhere experience is bound to spread as people realize the vast amount of content and entertainment that’s available to them right at their fingertips, and that there’s nothing standing between them and the latest episode of Game of Thrones.

Horia Galatanu, senior product manager at Adobe, wrote recently on the Adobe Primetime Blog that Adobe predicts TV Everywhere to hit 70 percent by the end of 2017. Given that many of us already have the connected-devices needed to watch TV on the go, this goal is definitely feasible. At Adobe, Galatanu is responsible for managing the authentication process for programmers when it comes to them being able to verify subscribers. (Adobe is the middleman in the transactions between the pay TV provider and the subscriber). Galatanu told us last summerthat Adobe was working towards creating a more convenient and easy user experience when it comes to the authentication process, and that getting the viewer to come back to the TV Everywhere model is always the goal.

Fast forward to today, and CTAM and Adobe just announced last week they have teamed up to produce an industry-wide universal sign-in standard that will help users adopt the TV Everywhere model into their lives without the hassle of having to sign in every time you are on the go or using a different device. The sign-in solution involves home-based authentication, a system that can verify a subscriber’s access and credentials in the home without the username and password sign in process. This single-sign on method allows subscribers to access multiple sites and apps without hitting walls. Subscribers could also access TV Everywhere on the go after giving their username and password just once, which would then allow access to all of its sites and apps. Galatanu also wrote about persistent authentication in his blog series, another method that would allow viewers to be logged in to TV Everywhere at all times. In this instance, a subscriber would never be “timed” out of a viewing session, like many are now after 30 days of authentication. Implementing all three of these methods, Galatanu says, will lead to the ideal TV Everywhere experience in the near future.

According to CTAM, portions of the sign-in solution will be available later this year, and supporters of the development of this solution include A+E, AMC, Comcast, Cox, Disney/ESPN, Mediacom, NBCUniversal, Scripps Networks Interactive, Turner and Viacom. As Galatanu told us last year, “implementing TV Everywhere really is an industry-wide project–it takes a village.”

It’s a very exciting time for television, and there’s no doubt that as the TV Everywhere sign-in process is simplified, on-the-go consumers will enjoy the most seamless viewing experience they ever have, allowing more people to discover the value of TV Everywhere and the ease with which it fits into their lifestyle.

Time will tell, but that 70 percent goal is sounding very plausible right about now…

This blog also appeared in CTAM Smartbrief. To sign up, click here.