The home screen isn’t owned. It has to be earned

There is a fundamental paradox facing television. Viewers can access more programmes, platforms and services than ever before, yet finding something they genuinely want to watch can feel remarkably difficult. The familiar rows of posters stretching across today’s home screens increasingly resemble the shelves of a video rental store. Digital delivery may have replaced the physical shelves, but it has not yet transformed the experience of searching them. We have almost infinite choice, but too little useful context to help us make a confident choice.

As competition for attention intensifies, the real battle is not simply about who controls the home screen. It is about creating enough context to understand what the viewer is looking for and helping them reach it quickly, confidently and fairly.

The home screen is not lost, but it is no longer owned

The home screen is now a shared gateway shaped by three groups: the device and operating-system provider, the broadcaster or service, and the viewer. Device manufacturers and platform operators have enormous influence over that gateway. But broadcasters and streaming services still provide the programmes, brands and audience relationships that give it value.

Trying to recreate a world in which one organisation controls the entire experience is neither realistic nor desirable. Instead, we need to establish the foundations of a healthy gateway: fair access, interoperable services and an experience that works simply and consistently across platforms and devices. The ultimate prize is not ownership of the home screen. It is earning the viewer’s next choice.

Standards help systems communicate; data provides the context

The future media environment will be driven increasingly by data. Search, recommendation, measurement and economics will all influence what is commissioned, what is surfaced and what succeeds. That can create better services and stronger businesses. It can also support important public outcomes by helping audiences discover trusted, relevant and accessible content. But data alone is not enough.

Standards allow systems to understand one another. Rich metadata allows those systems to understand the content. Good governance gives viewers and businesses confidence in the result.

If programme information is incomplete, inconsistent or locked within individual platforms, even the most sophisticated recommendation engine is working with one hand tied behind its back. Conversely, richer metadata without common standards simply creates better-informed silos.

We need consistent ways to describe programmes, contributors, themes, accessibility features, rights and availability. This would give search and recommendation systems the context needed to deliver genuinely useful results, while allowing innovation to travel across the market rather than stopping at the edge of each platform.

Moving beyond the ‘Blockbuster’ interface

The dominance of poster rails is partly a design choice, but it is also a reflection of the information beneath the interface. If a platform knows little more about a programme than its title, genre and thumbnail, it can do little more than rearrange the shelves. Breaking out of that model will require richer metadata, appropriate and transparent use of contextual signals, and more imaginative interface design.

Is the viewer looking for something to fill ten minutes or two hours? Are they watching alone or with their family? Do they need subtitles or audio description? Are they trying to find the next episode of a series, tonight’s live national moment or something completely unexpected? These signals can make discovery more useful, but greater intelligence must not create greater complexity. A clever interface that makes the viewer work harder has failed.

The commercial model, public-policy obligations and viewer experience all meet on the home screen. The challenge is to balance them without turning the viewer into the product or the interface into a shop window that nobody can navigate.

Prominence and personalisation are not opposites

Prominence establishes an important public-interest baseline. Trusted, universally available public-service content must remain easy to find. Personalisation can then make the wider experience more relevant to each viewer.

The test should be straightforward:

1. Can people find what matters?
2. Can they recognise and trust it?
3. Can everybody use it?

This does not require every home screen to look identical, but it does require common principles: public-service content that is genuinely discoverable, familiar routes into television and an experience that does not exclude people because of disability, limited digital confidence or poor connectivity.

The practical test can be deliberately basic. Can someone switch on the television, press 1 and move channels up or down without first having to learn how a new platform works? That simplicity is not nostalgia. It is an essential part of universality.

Evidence from the DTG’s Ofcom-commissioned work with i2 media research reinforces the point. The DTG developed an optional simplified interface in its lab, while i2 media research led the behavioural research and observational testing with viewers aged between 65 and 89. The work demonstrated how the interface could remove barriers created by layered menus, unfamiliar terminology, unclear feedback and poor visual hierarchy. The resulting paper was recognised with the IBC2026 Best Technical Paper Award.

Personalisation without appropriate guardrails risks making important content invisible. Prominence without an understanding of individual viewers risks becoming a static compliance exercise. Done properly, each can reinforce the other.

Discovery does not begin and end on the television

For many younger viewers, the decision about what to watch is made before the television is even switched on. A clip, creator or conversation on social media may provide the initial spark. That does not mean the home-screen battle is over. It means the home screen has become one part of a much wider discovery journey. The television experience must be able to recognise that intent, locate the right service and deliver the content with as little friction as possible.

There is much that broadcasters can learn from the speed, agility and audience understanding behind vertical video and micro-drama. The answer is not for television to become social media. It is for television to understand where discovery now happens and create a smoother path from interest to viewing.

Universality must survive the transition to IP

If discoverability is one test of universality, delivery is the other. These questions become even more important as the UK considers television’s transition from DTT towards IP delivery. The government’s green paper identifies 2034 as its preferred date for a managed transition, subject to important conditions, while consulting on 2044 as an alternative. Whichever timetable is ultimately selected, success will depend on much more than broadband coverage.

In-home connectivity, devices, accessibility, installation, consumer support, security and service reliability must all work together. The question is not simply whether a stream can reach a household. It is whether every household can participate, whether every television can work reliably and whether every viewer can use the service confidently. This is not primarily an invention challenge. The core technologies required already exist. The harder task is to coordinate them, scale them and assure the complete viewer experience.

The DTG does not set the transition date. Our role is to help the television sector deliver against it by bringing together broadcasters, streamers, platforms, manufacturers, internet service providers, technology companies, government and regulators. That means developing common requirements, enabling interoperability, testing solutions and building an evidence base that balances government policy, legitimate business expectations and the needs of every audience.

Television’s Moon Shot

At the DTG, we have described getting this right as television’s Moon Shot: an ambitious collective programme to preserve universal television while creating the conditions for a more dynamic and innovative future. The transition itself is not the destination. Once dependable foundations are in place, the industry must continue to invent: new formats, interfaces, services, business models and ways for television to earn its place in an increasingly complex media world.

The future of discovery is not a choice between algorithms and public service, personalisation and prominence, or innovation and universality. Our task is to combine the intelligence of data, the simplicity of television and the values of public service. The core technology already exists. Now we need the collective ambition to coordinate it, assure it and make it work for everyone.