What viewers expect
- One account and one subscription that work on every device
- Continue watching: start on a phone, resume on a television at the same point
- The same watchlist, profiles and recommendations everywhere
- A consistent look, adapted to each screen
- Purchases made on one device available on all
- Casting from a phone to a television
What it takes behind the scenes
- An app for each platform, each with its own technology and store
- A shared back end for accounts, entitlements, catalog and playback position
- Encoding and packaging that every device can play, including the right DRM for each
- Billing that reconciles web payments with each store's in-app purchases
- Layouts managed centrally, so a change to the home page reaches every app
- Analytics that recognize one viewer across devices
Choosing which platforms to support
Every platform adds cost, so order matters. Start with the web and the mobile platform most of your audience uses. Add television when long-form viewing or family viewing is central, beginning with the television platforms common in your market. Check your own analytics for the devices people are trying to watch on.
Why it matters
Viewers who use a service on more than one device watch more and cancel less, and television in particular lengthens sessions. A service missing from the screen a viewer prefers is easy to forget.
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