Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) has selected Adobe Primetime, a content delivery platform for all display screens, to support TBS’ TV Everywhere strategy for its most popular shows on the TNT and TBS apps and websites. If all goes well — and thus far all indications is that it has been a success with viewers — other TBS channels, including, Cartoon Network, truTV, NBA League Pass and AdultSwim will migrate to the Adobe Primetime platform as well “in the near future.”
Adobe Primetime helps programmers and pay TV service providers capitalize on the rising consumer interest in watching TV across IP-connected screens. The platform tightly integrates Adobe’s video publishing, player, DRM, advertising and analytics. Consumers must be subscribed to a pay TV service that carries TBS channels in order to access the content.
Using Adobe’s Primetime PayTV Pass authentication technology, which TBS helped develop, a single sign-on enables viewers to access Turner content across apps and devices without having to repeatedly log in with a user name and password. TBS is also using Adobe Primetime DRM to protect premium video content online.
Mike Wise, vice president, multiplatform distribution technologies for TBS, said that delivering “seamless, high-quality television experiences across the ever increasing consumer device landscape is of paramount importance for TV Everywhere to continue to succeed.”
As part of the Adobe Primetime system, Turner is also using the Adobe Primetime Player and its ad insertion technology to deliver and monetize its live video streams across iOS and Android devices.
TV viewing via IP continues to grow dramatically. Adobe’s latest Digital Index report claims that the number of authenticated streams increased by 400 percent in the first six months of this year, compared to the same period in 2012. The average number of unique visitors to sites with online TV content grew nearly sevenfold in the first six months of the year compared to same period in 2012. In addition, Primetime’s authentication technology is now used by more than 50 TV channels powering more than 100 apps and websites across all major device platforms including iOS, Android, Windows 8, Xbox, Roku, Apple TV and smart TVs.
Broadcast customers of Adobe Primetime authentication technology now include Disney, TBS, Viacom, Fox, NBCU, Scripps and A&E.
Adobe recently announced a series of enhancements to its Primetime software, such as new analytics capabilities that improve the viewer experience by giving content owners access to a broad set of data, including viewer engagement with both content and ads. There are also improvements in content protection, with a new cloud-based DRM service that simplifies the deployment of content-protected videos across devices.
