Re-contextualisation of TV Production: Implications of Audience Data in Digital Format Development

Format development at broadcasters is no longer confined to fixed-time television schedules. As broadcasters increasingly operate within a platform-diverse environment, new tensions have emerged between established ‘legacy’ workflows and the demands of digital, social media, and hybrid distribution, including video-on-demand (VOD) (Lobato and van Es, 2025). While existing production and audience studies have investigated shifts in content and viewership (Napoli, 2023; Johnson, 2024; Lotz and Havens, 2024), the intersection of format development, institutional innovation, and data practices remains underexplored. This study investigates how UK and German public service broadcasters are reconfiguring format development strategies, workflows, and professional roles across linear, VOD, and social media platforms. It analyses the tensions between market-driven claims of platform hybridity and the operational realities of platform-specific production, asking how organisational structures adapt to profound structural and cultural change. The analysis draws on Bourdieu’s field theory (1993, 2005), in combination with concepts from organisational sociology, media political economy, media production studies, and audience studies. This framework enables an analysis of how cultural and symbolic capital are negotiated in a shifting institutional field, and how power circulates through evolving production logics and professional hierarchies. Empirical findings are based on semi-structured interviews with professionals in commissioning, production, and audience strategy, alongside ethnographic observation of internal workshops at ARD/BR.

The thesis reveals a shift in decision-making processes: from hierarchical, top-down structures typical of linear television to more iterative, data-informed, and collaborative practices in digital production units. Whereas audience ratings dominate traditional contexts, digital productions have been shaped by platform-specific metrics and new forms of audience modelling. Importantly, audience data is now embedded in the earliest stages of format development rather than solely in post-broadcast evaluation. This research provides a critical comparative account of television and digital audiovisual production, offering insight into how public service broadcasters manage innovation, integrate data into creative workflows, and reconfigure organisational boundaries in response to platformisation.