Comcast looks to increase TV Everywhere app usage with new authentication process

Last week, Apple announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) that users will be able to use their pay TV logins just once to login to all cooperating OTT apps on Apple TV. A day before, Comcast announced that for cable and internet subscribers at home, they will automatically be authenticated and can use participating apps without having to log in. If subscribers are on the go, they will only have to log in once.

According to Comcast, its TVE apps have been downloaded more than 20 million times and live streaming has grown more than 100 per cent In the last year. 40 per cent of the company’s double play customers are using TVE each month.

Presumably, those numbers – while impressive – aren’t even higher because the authentication process is too cumbersome. “You hear a lot of people talking about that – but from a Comcast perspective, we’ve been doing a lot of experimenting to make it as easy as possible and help get customers to their content in as few steps as possible,” Vito Forlenza, senior director, TVE content and product strategy, Comcast Cable, tells Found Remote. “We’ve added Facebook Connect, the ability to sign in via third-party email addresses and easier ways to recover credentials – to name a few. But the research suggests that sign-in for TVE continues to be a sticking point.”

Forlenza says that Comcast has been “very aggressive” in promoting its TVE apps, and looks to do so around tentpole events like the Olympics.

Easier authentication is a no-brainer, but the implementation until has been difficult. For the new initiative, Comcast worked with the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing and Adobe.