Roku Developer Program

[geoffoliver]

TLDR: A ~10 year old podcast with a well established audience (free and paid) wants a Roku channel, but only wants people to be able to login and view content that their subscription allows - no account management features, no signup, no subscription management in the channel, nothing fancy. Does the channel have to use RokuPay?

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I have been approached about building a Roku channel for a podcast with a very large number of subscribers, some free, some paid, going back to the late 2000s. They (the podcast) do not want any account management features available in the Roku channel -- they want people to be able to sign in and view their content, and that's it. Anything other than signing in and searching/browsing/watching videos would take place on the podcast website, where their subscribers are comfortable and have experience.

Reading the terms, I'm not sure I'll be able to allowed to build a channel though since, it sounds like, if there's any sort of payment required to access content, that the channel must use RokuPay (https://docs.roku.com/published/developerdistribution/en/us, section 3.1 and https://developer.roku.com/docs/developer-program/roku-pay/roku-pay-best-practices.md, in the big yellow banner at the top) to manage subscribers and payments.

Is it possible to make a channel without using RokuPay, even if some of the users will have paid accounts which grant them access to additional content?

[RokuJonathanD]

Hi @geoffoliver,

If the channel is offering subscriptions on-device, they have to use Roku Pay. If they are not offering subscriptions on-device, they still may not direct customers to purchase subscriptions off-device (per requirement 2.3). Now that being said, implementing Roku Pay enables customers to purchase subscriptions with just a few keypresses. So that would seem like a missed oppotunity to maximize subscription revenue.  

Also, important to note, per requirement 2.3, all sign-ins must be done using On-device authentication. 

Thanks,

Jonathan

[devnullpointer]

I would have to say that if you are only offering a login to the podcast on the channel and NO purchase/registration options, or directions off roku to register/subscribe on the channel then I don't see why you would not be able to. Just have your api return the content based on the credentials of the signed in user. Seems simple to me.