As part of the UK’s Media Act which passed in 2024, connected TV platforms operating in the UK are obligated to make sure services, channels, and content from the UK’s public service broadcasters (PSBs) are available and prominent within their own platforms. The idea behind the regulation is to ensure PSBs retain the prominence they’ve enjoyed in traditional broadcast television, helping protect their place in the UK media landscape.
“Prominence” is obviously a subjective term, and this week Ofcom, the regulator in charge of enforcing these rules, has laid out a code of practice for giving PSBs prominence with a CTV interface. These rules — which have now been published for consultation — aren’t mandatory. Rather they’re a set of rules which CTV platforms can stick to in order to be confident they’re following the regulation. And the implication is that any service which doesn’t fit this code may well be deemed to have fallen short.
Thus, they give a clear idea of how much help the PSBs will receive from the new law, in terms of prominence.
From app menus to search results
Starting with app menus, where a CTV platform lists individual apps for users to browse, Ofcom says that PSB apps should be immediately visible, and appear within the first nine tiles presented within that menu. Given that there are six PSB apps which UK-wide platforms need to display, that’s quite a big ask, leaving just three slots for non-PSB apps. Assuming that a CTV platform will want to include its own streaming app within that menu, that leaves just two more slots within the top nine for the major international streamers.
In “primary content areas”, Ofcom’s term for areas of the UI where individual shows, series, and films are surfaced separately from the apps they’re carried on, Ofcom says simply that PSB content should be given no less prominence than non-PSB content. This should take into account the number of programmes presented, the length of time they’re presented for, the time of day they’re presented, the way they’re presented, and any other factors which affect prominence. Ofcom says platforms can think about this calculation by comparing PSB content on aggregate, across all primary content areas, against non-PSB content on aggregate in those same areas.
In a CTV platform’s search function, Ofcom says that whenever public service content is the most relevant result, it should be the most prominent search result. When it’s equally relevant to non-PSB content, it should be given similar prominence. There is flexibility here in terms of how a CTV platform determines what content is most relevant for the user, and Ofcom explicitly says it’s reasonable to take someone’s past behaviour into account. But Ofcom does say that CTV platforms might lose out on revenues as a result of this part of the code, as in some cases the need to promote PSB content might conflict with opportunities to sell promotional slots in search results.
For connected TV platforms which carry live channels, Ofcom says that the PSB’s channels must appear in the top spots in the channel guide, similar to the prominence they’re given within regular electronic programme guides (EPGs). And wherever PSB content is carried across CTV platforms, it must be prominently labelled to tell users which BVOD that content is available on.
Limits on CTV commercial spots
For the UK’s public service broadcasters, if Ofcom is rigid in enforcing standards which align with this code, it could have a big impact. Various PSBs submitted evidence to Ofcom on the impact of prominence within CTV interfaces, reporting, for example, significant drops in viewership on specific platforms when those platforms have removed their apps from the immediately-visible spots in their app menus.
From the perspective of CTV platforms however, this code could limit some of the commercial opportunities generated by their interfaces. The requirement to put PSB content and apps within a lot of the most favourable and visible slots in app menus, shared content areas, and search results will restrict their ability to sell those privileged positions to non-PSB apps.
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