AUTOMATICALLY IDENTIFYING REDUCED AVAILABILITY OF MULTI-CHANNEL MEDIA DISTRIBUTORS FOR AUTHENTICATION OR AUTHORIZATION

Abstract A method and a system are provided for automatically identifying reduced availability of multi channel medial distributors for authentication or authorization. An entitlement service (114) is provided which receives requests for various programmers (110) to provide media content to user devices (106), and transmits the requests to a multi-channel media distributor (112). The entitlement service communicates with the multi-channel media distributor to authenticate users requesting content from the programmers or to confirm that authenticated users are authorized to receive content from the programmers. The entitlement service then determines a reduced availability of the multichannel media distributor based on, for example, an unusually low success rate for authenticating users or authorizing the users' access to content. Due to this reduced availability of the multi-channel media distributor, the entitlement service provides the user devices with temporary access to the media content from the programmers during a period in which the reduced availability occurs. 1 /9 Docket No. 05808310964953 (P5734) Device Device Device Device Device 106a 106b 106c 106d 106e Network 1.08 Test Server Programmers 110 Entitlement Service Multi-Channel Media Distributo~r