Public service streaming platforms should promote public service content. Why don’t they?

IBT and the University of Leeds recently published ‘Behind the Screen’, a report on how public service broadcasting is changing as we move increasingly towards online viewing. Former BBC editor Roger Bolton was at the launch and reflects on the urgent questions the report raises.

Last month, I attended the launch of a new report on the future of public service media in the age of streaming. Reading the report, listening to the panel, and talking to people afterwards, it’s clear that regulators and policymakers are not up-to-speed as to how broadcasters are using their streaming services – their Broadcast Video on Demand, or BVoDs. 

Lack of transparency

How can they be? As ‘Behind the Screen’ makes clear, public service broadcasters (PSBs) are not being transparent as to how their online streaming services recommend programmes to viewers. 

Gone are the days when we all shared the same linear line-up of programmes; now, each of us has our different iPlayer, ITVX, and Channel 4. We’re all recommended different things based on our perceived preferences as determined by algorithms. 

But this means that we are not being recommended certain programmes that, in the past, would have been given greater prominence on the linear schedules. 

Certain genres – such as international content – are at risk 

This is particularly true when it comes to programming focused on arts, international issues, and religion and belief – a number of ‘at-risk genres’ that were removed from the 2024 Media Act’s public service remit. 

Unlike Netflix and Amazon Prime, BVoDs like iPlayer, ITVX, and Channels 4 and 5 should be public service platforms – although Gareth Barr, Director of Policy & Regulation at ITV who spoke on the panel, claimed that ITVX was not a public service platform.

But surely audiences deserve more than this. Streaming services from PSBs should be accountable to us and be expected to provide their civic duty of informing, educating and entertaining. That means exposing audiences to a wide range of content so that people can find programmes that they might not ordinarily have watched. 

Just as when we watch linear television, we often find ourselves watching the next programme in the schedule, BVoDs try to keep us on their platforms by recommending something to watch next. 

Public service content is not being recommended

Unlike with linear television, however, these recommendations are based on user-preferences, meaning that important programmes about art, religion and global affairs – that previously would have found a serendipitous audience on the linear schedules – are not being seen by people who may enjoy them, if only they knew such programmes existed. 

That we do not know how they are operating behind the screens should worry all of us who care about public broadcasting in the UK.

PSBs need to be transparent about how their streaming services work

At the moment, it is difficult to monitor how BVoDs actually function. We are left largely in the dark as to how and why these streaming platforms recommend certain kinds of programmes to audiences and not others.

This lack of transparency goes against the principles of public service media. In order to redress this, every PSB should make publicly available how the algorithms on their BVoDs work, so that audiences and regulators can better understand how programmes are recommended to viewers on the platforms. 

Despite what some argue, these BVoDs should be treated as public service streaming services and, as such, we are entitled to know how they operate.

Regulators need to be clearer on how they will monitor PSBs

What we need from Ofcom is precise details of how they will monitor public service programming in future.

Ofcom needs to be transparent and give clarity as to how it intends to monitor the availability, prominence and discoverability of those genres that were removed from public service remitted by the 2024 Media Act. 

At the moment, it is unclear exactly how Ofcom plans to regulate content on the PSB streaming platforms. If broadcasters are not held accountable by the regulators, important programmes may not be given prominence and audiences will miss out on a range of international, artistic and religious content. 

The government needs to do more to support public service media 

At a time when the world needs access to global storytelling more than ever, the government needs to show its commitment to public service broadcasting. 

An obvious way to support the PSBs is through money, for example the FCDO expanding its funding to the World Service. But the government can do more.

What we need from government, as the report says, is for them to “incentivise PSBs to broaden the range of genres and subject matter promoted and recommended to audiences; recognising the civic value of serendipity in public service media and the dangers of creating audience silos”.

Support from the highest-level would be invaluable to the sustainability of public service media. It would create an environment where audiences would see the value of public media, and see television not just as a means of a distraction but as a window to the wider world. 

Our public service broadcasting is one of the best things the UK has to offer. We have at our fingertips thousands of hours of quality programming – programmes on the world in which we live and how others see the world. 

At a time when the UK is looking inward – and audiences are increasingly looking downwards, towards a phone screen or tablet – public service media offers a brilliant opportunity to counter ignorance and foster understanding and growth. For it to do that successfully, it needs support from the highest-level. It needs to be accountable. It needs to be transparent. It’s what audiences deserve. 

Roger Bolton is a former BBC editor and presenter. He now presents a podcast, Roger Bolton’s Beeb Watch.