Providing prominence
A strategic guide for authorities, policy makers, and regulators on the role of open service discovery in supporting media policy objectives.
The importance of prominence
In traditional broadcast environments, prominence was largely guaranteed by fixed channel positions and national planning. Priority in numbering was often historic. The first services to launch got the top slots.
As audiences increasingly access media through connected devices and digital interfaces, there is a growing risk that trusted, public service media may become harder to find.
Prominence ensures that essential services, such as news and culturally significant programming, remain visible and accessible to all. In an online world, prominence must be redefined as a function of interface design, metadata, and discoverability.
What does plurality mean in media distribution?
Plurality in media means diversity of ownership, viewpoints, and types of progamming. It is a foundational principle of democratic societies and an essential safeguard against media concentration.
Digital platforms can enable or hinder plurality, depending on how programming is surfaced and selected. Algorithms, commercial incentives, and closed ecosystems may deliberately or inadvertently favour dominant players and reduce exposure to alternative voices and stories.
By contrast, open standards and transparent discovery mechanisms such as DVB-I support plurality by enabling multiple service providers to coexist within a shared, standards-based environment.
How can digital platforms support public value content?
Public value content must remain discoverable, even as distribution methods shift. To achieve this, digital platforms should:
- Support trusted sources of public service and regulated content
- Enable prominence through metadata and presentation controls
- Maintain accessibility across languages, regions, and user needs
- Provide safeguards against commercial bias in promoting programmes.
The Service List Registry enables precisely this: a trusted lookup mechanism that delivers curated service lists based on policy-defined criteria, user location, and device capabilities.
What role does the Service List Registry play in enabling prominence?
The SLR acts as a central, policy-aware platform for online service discovery. It provides:
- Geographic and regulatory targeting for different service lists
- Controlled coexistence of commercial and public value offerings
- Support for prominence policies, including ordering and metadata presentation
- Alignment with open standards, ensuring interoperability across devices.
For regulators, the SLR offers a mechanism to promote compliance without imposing a specific user interface, empowering devices to reflect local rules while preserving consumer choice.
How can media regulation adapt to online delivery?
Hybrid delivery, combining broadcast and online distribution, challenges traditional regulatory boundaries. Services may be delivered over the internet, originate from outside national jurisdictions, or be updated dynamically.
To remain effective, regulation must:
- Embrace open standards for discovery and metadata
- Define trusted service criteria based on content obligations
- Enable dynamic prominence that responds to changing conditions
- Ensure transparency and accountability in service listing and updates.
By adopting technologies like DVB-I and registries like the SLR, policy makers can implement forward-looking frameworks that support media plurality, accessibility, and national objectives, even in the absence of traditional broadcast infrastructure.
Conclusion
As media transitions to an online environment, the tools for ensuring prominence, plurality, and public value must evolve. Open discovery standards and trusted registries provide a practical foundation for future-ready regulation.
The Service List Registry, together with DVB-I, empowers both the industry and regulators to ensure that vital content remains visible, accessible, and resilient, regardless of how it is delivered.