Public service programming in the age of platforms: Innovation, identity, and impact

Facing increased competition for audiences and content from global streaming services, public service media (PSM) organisations have increasingly prioritised ‘big statement programmes’ as a means of securing reach and relevance within on-demand environments. This article examines how PSM organisations reinterpret the value of such programmes, focussing on how individual titles are positioned as emblematic of public service missions. Drawing on a comparative thematic analysis of interviews and organisational documents related to 27 programmes across nine PSM organisations – in Belgium (Flanders and Wallonia), Denmark, Italy, Poland, and the UK – the article examines how programme-level prioritisation has become a key site of strategy and value negotiation. Across cases, we identify three sites of discursive tension between strategies and values: shifting understandings of innovation towards popular formats that can reach audiences across linear and non-linear services; differing constructions of impact that balance civic significance with reach; and contrasting interpretations of national identity shaped by market, regulatory, and cultural contexts.