When availability is not enough: Content prominence and diversity on a public service VoD platform
By: Raul Lobanov
References
- Bengesser, C., Hilborn, M., & Steemers, J. (2024). Comparative VOD catalogue research: Circulation, presence and prominence of British content in Europe. Convergence, 31(5), 1511–1531.
https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565241268057 - Bengesser, C., & Sørensen, J. K. (2024). Different diversities: Policies and practices at three European public service VoD services. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 30(4), 1365–1387.
https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565241270897 - Bideau, G. (2020, September 30). Television had prime time: How about prime space for on-demand services? Medium.
https://medium.com/@gbideau/ee534c7cdd5d - Bruun, H. (2023). The changing role of a video-on-demand service in the strategies of public service media: A production study of Danish TV 2 Play and its impact on the production culture of the schedulers, 2016–2022. Nordicom Review, 44(2), 235–252.
https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2023-0013 - Bruun, H., & Lassen, J. M. (2023). New scheduling strategies and production culture in public service television in the digital era: The case of DR and TV 2 in Denmark. Critical Studies in Television, 19(2), 182–200.
https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020231196422 - Cimino, F. (2020). How PSM deliver value. European Broadcasting Union.
- D’Arma, A., Raats, T., & Steemers, J. (2021). Public service media in the age of SVoDs: A comparative study of PSM strategic responses in Flanders, Italy and the UK. Media, Culture & Society, 43(4), 682–700.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443720972909 - Donders, K. (2019). Public service media beyond the digital hype: Distribution strategies in a platform era. Media, Culture & Society, 41(7), 1011–1028.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443719857616 - Evens, T., Henderickx, A., & Conradie, P. (2023). Technological affordances of video streaming platforms: Why people prefer video streaming platforms over television. European Journal of Communication, 39(1), 3–21.
https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231231155731 - García Leiva, M. T., & Mazzoli, E. M. (2023). Safeguarding the visibility of European audiovisual services online: An analysis of the new prominence and discoverability rules. In R. Ranaivoson, S. Broughton Micova, & T. Raats (Eds.), European audiovisual policy in transition (pp. 198–217). Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003262732 - Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Houghton Mifflin.
- Hartley, J., Ibrus, I., & Ojamaa, M. (2020). On the digital semiosphere: Culture, media and science for the Anthropocene. Bloomsbury Academic.
- Helberger, N. (2012). Exposure diversity as a policy goal. Journal of Media Law, 4(1), 65–92.
https://doi.org/10.5235/175776312802483880 - Helberger, N., Karppinen, K., & D’Acunto, L. (2016). Exposure diversity as a design principle for recommender systems. Information, Communication & Society, 21(2), 191–207.
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1271900 - Hindman, M. (2007). A mile wide and an inch deep: Measuring media diversity online and offline. In P. M. Napoli (Ed.), Media diversity and localism: Meaning and metrics (pp. 327–348). Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410614407 - Hesmondhalgh, D., & Lotz, A. D. (2020). Video screen interfaces as new sites of media circulation power. International Journal of Communication, 14, 386–409.
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/13261 - Ibrus, I., Karjus, A., Zemaityte, V., Rohn, U., & Schich, M. (2023). Quantifying public value creation by public service media using big programming data. International Journal of Communication, 17, 6741–6763.
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21035/4382 - Iordache, C., Loisen, J., & Van Audenhove, L. (2023). Integrating discoverability and prominence in video-on-demand consumption choices: A qualitative user study in Belgium. International Communication Gazette, 86(7), 581–603.
https://doi.org/10.1177/17480485231191898 - Iordache, C., Martin, D., Münter Lassen, J., Raats, T., Świtkowski, F., Gajlewicz-Korab, K., & Johnson, C. (2024). People, personalisation, prominence: A framework for analysing the PSM shift to digital portals and interrogating universality across contexts. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 28(2), 520–541.
https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779241296556 - Iordache, C., & Raats, T. (2023). The platformization of public service media: A comparative analysis of five BVOD services in Western and Northern Europe. International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 19(1), 3–22.
https://doi.org/10.1386/macp_00070_1 - Johnson, C., Hills, M., & Dempsey, L. (2023). An audience studies’ contribution to the discoverability and prominence debate: Seeking UK TV audiences’ ‘routes to content’. Convergence, 30(5), 1625–1645.
https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231222605 - Kantar Emor. (2025). Base study of the television audience measurement survey 2025.
- Kelly, J., & Sørensen, J. K. (2021). What’s on the interface tonight? A longitudinal analysis of the publishing strategies of public service video-on-demand platforms in the UK and Denmark. MedieKultur: Journal of Media and Communication Research, 37(70), 66–90.
https://doi.org/10.7146/mediekultur.v37i70.122386 - Lobanov, R., & Ibrus, I. (2026). Understanding TV audiences in the multiplatform era: How televisual viewing modes shape content popularity. Convergence. OnlineFirst.
https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565261442042 - Lobato, R., Scarlata, A., & Wils, T. (2024). Video-on-demand catalog and interface analysis: The state of research methods. Convergence, 30(4), 1331–1347.
https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565241261992 - Loecherbach, F., Moeller, J., Trilling, D., & van Atteveldt, W. (2020). The unified framework of media diversity: A systematic literature review. Digital Journalism, 8(5), 605–642.
https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2020.1764374 - Lüders, M., & Sundet, V. S. (2021). Conceptualizing the experiential affordances of watching online TV. Television & New Media, 23(4), 335–351.
https://doi.org/10.1177/15274764211010943 - Markham, A., Stavrova, S., & Schlüter, M. (2019). Netflix, imagined affordances, and the illusion of control. In T. Plothe, & A. M. Buck (Eds.), Netflix at the nexus: Content, practice, and production in the age of streaming television (pp. 29–46). Peter Lang.
- Matthew, J. R. (2020). Netflix and the design of the audience: The homogenous constraints of data-driven personalization. MedieKultur: Journal of Media and Communication Research, 36(69), 52–70.
https://doi.org/10.7146/mediekultur.v36i69.121223 - Mattis, N., Masur, P., Möller, J., & van Atteveldt, W. (2024). Nudging towards news diversity: A theoretical framework for facilitating diverse news consumption through recommender design. New Media & Society, 26(7), 3681–3706.
https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221104413 - McQuail, D. (1992). Media performance: Mass communication and the public interest. Sage.
- Moe, H., Hovden, J. F., & Karppinen, K. (2021). Operationalizing exposure diversity. European Journal of Communication, 36(2), 148–167.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323120966849 - Moreau, F., & Peltier, S. (2004). Cultural diversity in the movie industry: A cross-national study. Journal of Media Economics, 17(2), 123–143.
https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327736me1702_4 - Nagy, P., & Neff, G. (2015). Imagined affordance: Reconstructing a keyword for communication theory. Social Media + Society, 1(2), 1–9.
https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115603385 - Napoli, P. M. (1998). Evolutionary theories of media institutions and their responses to new technologies. In L. C. Lederman (Ed.), Communication theory: A reader (pp. 317–329). Kendall Hunt.
- Napoli, P. M. (1999). Deconstructing the diversity principle. Journal of Communication, 49(4), 7–34.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1999.tb02815.x - Napoli, P. M. (2011). Exposure diversity reconsidered. Journal of Information Policy, 1, 246–259.
https://doi.org/10.5325/jinfopoli.1.2011.0246 - Stirling, A. (2007). A general framework for analysing diversity in science, technology and society. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 4(15), 707–719.
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2007.0213 - Sørensen, J. (2025). Performance indicators for public service VoD: Visualizing longitudinal publishing patterns. Media Industries, 12(1), 9.
https://doi.org/10.3998/mij.7627 - Thurman, N., Klatt, A., Raj, H., & Taneja, H. (2023). Predicting streaming audiences for a channel’s on-demand TV shows: Discerning the influences of choice architecture, consumer agency, and content attributes. Convergence, 30(3), 1254–1270.
https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231174590 - Webster, J. G. (2014). The marketplace of attention: How audiences take shape in a digital age. MIT Press.
Language: English
Page range: 231 - 253
Published on: Nov 11, 2026
Published by: University of Gothenburg Nordicom
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Keywords:
Related subjects:
© 2026 Raul Lobanov, published by University of Gothenburg Nordicom
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.
