Smarter, Safer Streaming with the Parental Control Feature Upgrade
Streaming should be safe, seamless and stress-free. Families want peace of mind, and platform operators need confidence in compliance. That’s why we’ve upgraded our parental control feature to make safer, age-appropriate streaming easier to deliver, manage, and trust on every screen.
What’s New with Parental Control?
Our enhanced parental control feature goes beyond PIN prompts. It introduces rating system flexibility, richer content metadata, and more control for both operators and end users.
For OTT operators:
- Enable national rating systems by region
- Add rating levels, advisory reasons, and icons to content
- Stay compliant with regional regulatory frameworks
For end users:
- View content ratings and details like ‘violence’, ‘nudity’, or ‘strong language’ before pressing play
- Set PIN prompts based on specific content ratings
- Manage parental settings easily in their user account
Why Parental Controls Matter for Your OTT Service
- Friction-Free Compliance: Meet age-appropriateness rules with built-in flexibility
- Trust & Transparency: Clear ratings and advisory info build viewer confidence
- Better UX for Families: Parents get the control they want without complexity
How the Parental Control Feature Works
Parental Control is adaptable and easy to configure, whether you’re protecting live content, catch-up, or on-demand video.
Operator setup:
- Enable it in Console > Default Settings > Content > Parental Control
- Choose from flexible logic options:
- Watershed: PINs required for linear content between 22:00–06:00, including catch-up content. Can also be enabled for specific channels by setting “verify age” to yes.
- Around the clock: Ideal for VOD – PIN prompts appear based on age ratings set in metadata.
- Age limit: A global setting that enforces PIN prompts for content at or above a specified PG age.
- Enabled by default: Automatically turns parental control ON for all new users upon registration.
- Optional parental control: Allows end users to enable or disable parental control from their account settings.
- Enable one or more rating systems, and define a fallback system for countries where no rating system is configured. (If no rating level is set for a region, no rating will display for that content.)
- Tag each asset with rating levels and advisory reasons (e.g., “violence”, “language”) via metadata.
User configuration:
Users can manage their own parental control settings directly from their account, allowing them to tailor PIN prompts and content access based on their preferences.
- Set personal PIN prompt thresholds based on rating level
- Receive/reset PINs via email for secure verification
- See rating level and content reasons before watching
- Toggle parental control on/off (if allowed by platform settings)
Available On:
Our enhanced Parental Control feature is available across all Magine Pro applications:
- Web, mobile, Smart TVs, Android TV, tvOS
- VOD (including downloads), Live, Linear, Catchup, and Trailers
Smarter Metadata for Smarter Protection
For the Parental Control feature to work effectively, your content metadata should include the following fields for each asset (e.g., Movie, Episode, Broadcast):
- System: The rating system being applied (e.g. US, Sweden)
- Rating: The specific age or classification level (e.g. PG-13, 18+)
- Reasons: Tags describing why the content received that rating, such as “violence,” “nudity,” or “substance abuse”
Operators can enable multiple rating systems and configure a fallback system for regions without a dedicated rating scheme. This ensures consistent content protection worldwide.
What the Viewer Sees
- Rating level displayed as icons or text on content cards and detail pages
- Rating reasons shown before playback (e.g. “Nudity,” “Violence”)
- PIN prompts are triggered at the appropriate moment based on user or platform-defined thresholds
- Transactional email sent to users for PIN delivery, reset, and verification
- Users can manage settings in their account (if the service allows), including adjusting rating thresholds or disabling parental control, with PIN confirmation required for changes
Put Viewers in Control and Keep Your Platform Compliant
Parental Control protects both your platform and your viewers. With greater flexibility for operators and more clarity for users, it helps you deliver a safer, smarter, and more personalised streaming experience.
Ready to activate Parental Control? You can enable it directly in your Magine Pro Console.
Want to learn more about Parental Control and the other powerful features in our OTT platform? Get in touch. And don’t miss future feature announcements—follow us on LinkedIn for the latest updates.
Video Streaming Services: Human Curation Vs Algorithms
In this post, we look at the benefits of human content curation over recommendation algorithms for video streaming services and the impact it can have on your brand and content discoverability.
Recommendation Algorithms
Recommendation algorithms are commonplace in most video streaming services, designed to connect audiences with content they’re most likely to enjoy based on what they’ve previously watched. Content categories that are based on recommendations are generated by the data gathered on a user’s viewing habits and will continue evolving the more input and data a user provides. However, algorithms are also somewhat limited; they can’t anticipate how a user’s tastes might change for example, the impact of trends, current events or even how a user feels on a particular day.
That being said, they are an essential feature for most mainstream players, primarily due to them having vast libraries of content that can overwhelm users and make it much more difficult to find something they want to watch. But even so, we’re beginning to see more prominent video streaming services, including HBO Max and Netflix, turn to human content curation alongside.
Human Curation
Curating content categories that are original and exclusive to your service is a fantastic way to boost brand identity and promote content discovery. Smaller and niche services in particular that don’t have an extensive library of content can benefit significantly from manual curation. It gives services much more control over what and where the content appears. And when positioned and promoted effectively, categories curated by experienced editor’s can prove to be more popular with users than AI recommended categories.
Key Benefits
- Boost Brand Identity
How content is presented in your service is a reflection of your brand. Grip users on the discovery page of your service with exclusive content and curated categories that reflect your service’s niche and brand’s tone of voice. - Resurface Content
Utilise your entire library and curate categories that mix new content with older but equally relevant content. Manual curation gives you more control over how this content appears and the context. - Creative Categories
Build digital campaigns around creative categories to boost content and brand awareness. Consider curating content categories that reflect topical events, currently popular actors/directors or even moods.
Magine Pro CMS Console
The Magine Pro CMS Console offers our partners fantastic flexibility for manual category curation. You can also determine where a category appears on the service discovery page and boost its prominence by selecting larger thumbnail images sizes for the featured content. Increase user engagement and discovery by creating a dynamic interface that features a range of uniquely curated categories to explore.
To discover more about the benefits of human curation on content and streaming service discoverability, download our latest white paper, OTT Discovery: How to stand out amongst the crowd. This white paper also includes original research by Omdia and partner case studies that highlight their in-market experiences. You’ll also discover what new streaming services can do to boost brand awareness, drive discoverability and increase conversion rates through marketing efforts and service features.
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Want more advice and support on driving awareness & discoverability? Get in touch with the Magine Pro team and find out how we can help. You can also learn more about our CMS Console and branded OTT solutions and services here.
How To Drive Awareness & Video Service Discoverability: Part One
In 2020, online video overtook pay-TV subscriptions on a global level for the first time, according to Omdia’s recent report, which suggests that the competition for a share of the viewer’s time and wallet is at an all-time high. For new market entrants to be successful, they need to cut through the noise and increase discoverability.
Promotional offers are an effective way for streaming services to heighten brand awareness and increase subscriber numbers. Offering exclusive trial offers can help persuade a potential customer to sign up or subscribe long-term for a discounted rate. They’re also a great way to re-engage dormant users, boost marketing campaigns and promote new content within your service. As highlighted in Omdia’s report, users are experimenting increasingly with new streaming services and, aside from content, are primarily encouraged by aggressive promotional activity, price cuts and offers.
There are various types of promotional offers to consider that can increase awareness and conversion:
- Joint promotions with a partner, benefitting from shared costs and reach expansion.
- Classic percentage discounts on subscription sign-ups OR for select content (TVOD).
- Exclusive sign up offers that are short-term for specific marketing campaigns.
At Magine Pro, we enable our partners to easily set up and manage campaigns and promotional offers via the CMS Console. Prices can be changed by a predefined amount or by a certain percentage, and the duration of the offer/code can also be set.
In part two, we will share more insights from our latest white paper and talk specifically about proactive subscriber care that can turn subscribers from seasonal sign-ups to long-term loyalists.
Download our white paper now, OTT Discovery: How to stand out amongst the crowd, to find out more about the benefits of promotional offers and partnerships, including partner case studies that highlight their in-market experiences. You’ll also discover what new streaming services can do to boost brand awareness, drive discoverability and increase conversion rates through marketing efforts and service features.
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Want more advice and support on driving awareness & discoverability? Get in touch with the Magine Pro team and find out how we can help. You can also learn more about our branded OTT solutions and services here.