PROTECH
WHY CONVERGED MEDIA CONSUMPTION REQUIRES A CONVERGED SECURITY SOLUTION
With the growth and penetration of smart TVs as the main device for converged media consumption, it is possible to eliminate the two-silo security approach and leverage a converged security system for delivering hybrid TV services, says Bo Ferm
Broadcast TV and streaming – oil and water? Multichannel video programming distributors – MVPDs, better known as pay-TV operators – have been competing with aggressive over-the-top (OTT) streaming providers for some 15 years. Few probably saw the Netflix launch of its streaming service in 2007 as a defining moment at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight it all looks so obvious. While streaming providers did not pose an imminent threat to established pay-TV operators, they have been eating away at their subscribers ever since. The result has been relentless cord-cutting and a sharp reduction of linear pay-TV audience. This trend has been further cemented by newer streaming entrants such as Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock and Paramount+, and the parallel trend of free ad-supported TV (FAST) channels and ad-based video-on-demand (AVOD) services.
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Content protection then and now To protect broadcast and pay-TV services from copyright infringement and piracy, MVPDs have relied on conditional access systems (CAS) ever since digital TV was introduced in the mid ‘90s. Contrast that with streaming service providers, which are required to use digital rights management (DRM) technology for their premium content. These two worlds of content protection have remained distinct and separate, occupying two silos with nothing connecting them. The traditional CAS approach, with its dependence on proprietary security hardware in set-top boxes, is contrasted by the flexibility of DRM-protected streaming over the internet. MVPDs add streaming services To counter the OTT offensive, MVPDs first added TV everywhere (TVE) services, allowing authorised viewers to
