The Impact of Commissioning and Content Strategies on Online Public Service Media Programming

This article highlights the commissioning and content strategies employed in the production of programmes for the ‘prime space’ of the public service streaming service TV 2 Play in Denmark. The strategies fuel two overall trends in the entertainment and documentary programmes currently published: (1) the embedded diversity approach and (2) the megaphone approach. The article is based on interviews with management at TV 2 and strategic documents, and it presents three examples of these current programming trends: the Danish adaptation of the reality game shows The Traitors (2023+), Race Across the World (2020+), and the documentary The Black Swan (2024–2025). The article discusses on this background the challenges to core values in public service media programming online.