Channels as content curators: Multiplatform strategies for documentary film and factual content in British public service broadcasting

Today, VOD (video on demand) sites and portals specializing in long-form, high-quality documentary and factual content proliferate online. This article explores the multiplatform strategies of public service broadcasters in the UK in this context. It examines how the BBC and Channel 4 address the masses of user generated content that flood the documentary market and partake in the battle for audiences for documentary films and factual content in a multiplatform context. Both channels seek to reinvent themselves as public service media providers and curators of documentary content online, in order to fulfil public service remits and secure their positions as leading providers of documentary and factual content across platforms in a global multiplatform mediascape. However, by contrasting Channel 4's online verticals' with the BBC's themed and branded documentary portals, the article argues that although Channel 4 and BBC pursue similar strategies online they do so for different reasons and to different effect.