When availability is not enough: Content prominence and diversity on a public service VoD platform

As public service media (PSM) shift from broadcasting to video on demand (VoD), prominence has become a key mechanism through which public value is operationalised. While policy debates emphasise the visibility of culturally significant content, evidence on how interface prominence shapes viewing remains scarce. Building on theories of affordances, prominence, and media diversity, this article conceptualises diversity transformation as the process through which diversity changes from catalogue availability, through interface prominence, to audience consumption. Using a longitudinal dataset from Estonian Public Broadcasting (ERR), the study finds that prominence and premieres are the strongest predictors of VoD viewing, explaining 62 per cent of the variance. The findings illustrate a process of diversity transformation: Although ERR’s VoD catalogue is diverse, interface prominence and audience consumption become concentrated around scripted and foreign titles. The study confirms that the VoD interface has become a strategic site where PSM negotiate tensions between universality, cultural responsibility, and audience demand.