Yesterday Roku announced several new requirements for Roku channel creators. These new requirements include mandatory support for Universal Single Sign-On for network TV apps and requiring apps to let you sign-up, sign-in, upgrade, and downgrade inside the Roku Channel without being sent to a website.
Details on Roku’s New Universal Single Sign-On Rule
All authenticated transactional (SVOD, TVOD) channels must provide a way to sign-up, upgrade, downgrade, and sign-in to an account on the device itself and not require visiting an external web page to complete these functions.
Universal SSO allows users who have been authenticated on a Roku device to be automatically signed in on other Roku devices.
With this new rule most cable networks are now forced to support Roku’s SSO.
New Authentication Rules
All authenticated transactional (SVOD, TVOD) channels must provide a way to sign-up, upgrade, downgrade, and sign-in to an account on the device itself and not require visiting an external web page to complete these functions.
Sending users off-device to login to an account is a point of churn. Users may leave a channel with a difficult authentication flow to look for the same content with another provider or consume different content altogether.
Roku is also updating their performance criteria for new Roku Channels:
- The channel launches to a fully rendered homescreen within 20 seconds.
- Screen-to-screen (scene-to-scene) transitions are within 5 seconds. (This requirement has been eased from the previous 3-second recommendation.)
- Responses to user requests that take longer than 3 seconds require the appropriate “in progress” notification. Responses cannot take longer than 10 seconds to complete.
- The channel’s response to a remote button press and tile-to-tile navigation is within 250 milliseconds.
- Content starts playing within 10 seconds of initiation. (This requirement has been eased from the previous 5-second recommendation.)
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