Synacor on Wednesday unveiled a new solution that aims to alleviate pay TV providers’ costly problem of password sharing, while making the login process less of a headache for consumers.
The new feature, Forever Login, on Synacor’s Cloud ID authentication platform provides operators with control of the maximum number of concurrent devices allowed for TV Everywhere logins and the required length of time between logins, the company said.
With Forever Login, a customer’s device is automatically registered when they first log into a TV Everywhere app and the feature continues to authorize video on the device in accordance with operator policies.
Unlike other existing authentication offerings that require a user to reenter passwords after a certain period of time, Synacor said its Forever Login feature simply prompts consumers to “continue” to access the site or app they’re using to watch pay TV.
“Forever Login is as easy to deploy as it is to use and was developed following persistent interest from customers,” John Kavanagh, Executive Director of Identity Services at Synacor, said in a statement. “Pairing powerful content protection with a better viewing experience is an industry first letting operators combat abuse while increasing engagement. Synacor is eager to continue expanding rollouts following positive feedback from early customer deployments.”
The feature is now commercially deployed for pay TV operators in the U.S., and Synacor said it counts content networks, satellite, telco and cable operators, and three of the top five virtual MVPDs as customers.
“Operators want to give subscribers the anytime, anywhere TV Everywhere access they crave but there are complex rights and meaningful business issues that have stood in the way,” Synacor CEO Himesh Bhise said in a statement. “Forever Login lets TV Everywhere subscribers say goodbye to passwords, while giving operators the tools they need to tackle what analysts are calling a $10 billion password abuse problem facing the pay TV industry.”
The figure Bhise cited comes from Parks Associates research, and gives credence to rising industry concern about what a problem password sharing has become. ESPN and Charter Communications have been some of the most vocal critics, and have pushed to crack down on TV Everywhere password sharing, by for example, limiting the number of concurrent streams on app.
Synacor said Forever Login, when paired with the company’s mobile Single Sign-On technology that keeps customers logged in across multiple apps, allows for increased TV Everywhere usage both in and out of the home.
“Synacor’s Forever Login is the first tool that enables us to easily enforce fraud prevention rules while improving the consumer experience,” Scott Young, director of marketing at Service Electric Cablevision said.
