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For the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science, Directorate Media and Creative Industry, we investigated how the due prominence of media offerings or services of general interest in the Dutch media sector can be approached and organized in an optimally future-proof manner.
In the current digital and multimedia era, the possibilities for distribution, offering, and viewing audiovisual content have greatly increased. Not only through TV package providers (ZiggoVodafone and KPN), but increasingly also through on-demand video services via the internet (Netflix, Videoland, and Disney+), social media channels (YouTube, Vimeo), and tech platforms (Apple TV, Google TV, and Amazon Prime). The downside of this development is that the discoverability and visibility of specific media services, in the ever-expanding content offerings, is at stake. This is especially true for content of general interest (particularly news and information, education, and culture), as we know from public broadcasting, but can also be offered by non-public broadcasters.
Prominence is the degree to which certain media offerings stand out compared to other offerings, for example in electronic program guides (EPG), video interfaces and catalogs, as well as in recommendations and search algorithm results. The European Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMDR, art 7 bis) allows Member States to impose specific obligations regarding the visibility of content of general interest, for the sake of objectives related to cultural diversity, media pluralism, and freedom of expression.
The research was carried out by Dialogic in collaboration with Paul Rutten Research and Bart van der Sloot. The report was presented to the First and Second Chamber by Minister Slob on October 25, 2021. Read the relevant Chamber letter here or download the research report here.
