The Danish journal MedieKultur has published a new special issue titled “Publishing Strategies in Online Television”, offering a timely look at how streaming services, public broadcasters, and digital platforms are reshaping the way television content is released and consumed.
The issue builds on MedieKultur’s 2003 special edition Changing Television, which explored how the rise of multi-channel portfolios and increasing market competition were affecting television programming and industry structures.
“In 2003, MedieKultur published a special issue with the title ‘Changing Television’,” as noted by the editors, Mads Møller Tommerup Andersen and Hanne Bruun. “The aim was to show how the professional ability of scheduling relevant content on the many new channels was getting increasingly important. This strategic shift had a huge impact on the development of the organisational structures of the television companies, their production cultures, and the development and commissioning of new content in that era.”
The 2025 special issue revisits some of those earlier questions, but with a sharper focus on digital publishing. “We focus this issue entirely on publishing strategies and practices for online television,” the editors note in the introduction.
The special issue features five articles that delve into various aspects of online television publishing:
- A comparative study of public service media’s VoD catalogues in five European markets (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, and the UK), analyzing content exclusivity and distinctiveness
- An empiricial study of the digital transition of the Danish public service media organisation DR and implications for its production culture
- A comparative analysis of algorithm development and implementation in the BBC (UK) and VRT (Flanders-Belgium), exploring how these are guided by organizational remits
- A case study on Amazon’s adaptation of the reality talent show “Operación Triunfo,” investigating the integration of cross-media practices and commercial strategies
- An exploration of how Danish national and regional PSM news departments are experimenting with new narrative structures to cater to on-demand audiences
Additionally, the issue includes articles on topics such as the communication strategies of Danish carpenters on Instagram, the dynamics of parasocial relationships between streamers and audiences, the emotional labor of digital platform workers, media productions by Burgaz islanders fostering community resilience, and the examination of the birth of the TV channel DR2.