Software vendor Adobe says single sign-on (SSO) technology has spearheaded significant increases in the consumption of TV Everywhere video.
With leading pay TV platforms including DirecTV and Dish deploying various SSO solutions, Adobe says the amount of times pay TV subscribers “start” an authenticated video on a mobile or OTT device was up 46% year over year in September, reaching 500 million starts.
The number of pay TV subscribers using TV Everywhere (TVE) apps was also up 25% in September to 20.45 million. And the number of TVE authentications using SSO was up 45%, according to Adobe.
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The daunting consumer task of having to continuously enter user names and passwords for every broadcast and cable channel’s TVE app—much less remember them—has long been singled out as a key deterrent to TVE adoptions.
Adobe, along with other tech vendors, including Apple and Synacor, have developed solutions for the industry that allow users to simply punch in user name and password into their smart phone or OTT device one time to continuously access and stream their cable, satellite or IPTV subscription programming.
Adobe says its SSO solution is currently usable on Apple iOS tablets and smart phones, as well as Apple TV and Roku streaming devices.
Within the cable industry, Adobe is also working with Comcast. But a number of smaller cable companies backed by the National Cable TV Cooperative (NCTC) have begun using SSO tech developed by Apple.
No matter where they get their SSO solution from, pay TV operators are obviously seeing TVE usage increase with the new user-friendly tools.
Of course, with TVE launched nearly a decade ago to address OTT competition and stem cord cutting, the help might have come a little too little and too late.