NLZiet and NPO’s tiered VoD strategy: Balancing universal access and platform sovereignty

This article examines how the Dutch public broadcaster NPO has approached streaming through three video-on-demand (VoD) services: NPO Start, NPO Plus, and NLZiet. Rather than a fragmented strategy, NPO’s tiered approach responds to a “wicked” problem: fulfilling its public service remit while facing cord-cutting, budget cuts, intensifying market competition, and the rise of new gatekeepers. Focusing on NLZiet, a collaboration between NPO and two commercial Dutch broadcasters (RTL, SBS), and drawing on interviews, document analysis, and policy review, the paper explores this tiered strategy. It reflects on how distribution has expanded from the relative neutrality of legacy cable to platform intermediaries that exercise gatekeeping and shape media circulation, a shift that undermines PSM control over viewing context. The research identifies a clear tension between the aim of broad, universal access to public content across multiple channels and the ways digital platforms threaten core PSM values through their interfaces, algorithms and underlying infrastructure. The case of NLZiet shows how some of these values can be safeguarded through collaborative arrangements, but it also reveals how NPO doesn’t want to rely on third parties for distribution; long-term viability requires platform sovereignty and stable funding. Finally, NPO’s decision to maintain both NPO Start and NPO Plus highlights how changing viewing habits and austerity complicate efforts to secure the broadcaster’s role in the platform age.