The datafication of Public Service Media

Abstract

Historically, public service broadcasting had no quantifiable knowledge about audiences, nor a great interest in knowing them. Today, the competitive logic of the media markets encourage public service media (PSM) organizations to increase datafication. In this paper we examine how a PSM organization interprets the classic public service obligations of creating societal cohesion and diversity in the new world of key performance indicators, business rules and algorithmic parameters.The paper presents a case study of the implementation of a personalization system for the video on demand service of the Danish PSM ‘DR’. Our empirical findings, based on longitudinal in-depth interviewing, indicate a long and difficult process of datafication of PSM, shaped by both the organizational path dependencies of broadcasting production and the expectations of public service broadcasting.