Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) has chosen the PEACH platform created by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) as a recommendation engine for its digital products.
Joining several other European and German broadcasters, DW will use PEACH to tailor its content offerings to better meet the needs of its target audiences.
The platform leverages a broad range of data points to provide users on DW’s website with recommendations for other DW content that might be relevant to them. It bases these suggestions on user preferences, behaviour, context, related keywords, content features and other information.
As an advanced recommendation engine, PEACH also deliberately diversifies the content it recommends to users by showing different content viewed by other, similar users (in terms of demographics, for example). By suggesting new content to users, it gives them a different perspective on topics and gets them out of their echo chambers, according to DW. The broadcaster stresses that personal data is handled responsibly and not used by external parties.
“PEACH is the answer to so many questions that we have been asking ourselves for some time,” said Guido Baumhauer, Managing Director Distribution, Marketing and Technology at DW. “With it, we can better provide our users with even more content that better matches their interests and behaviour while also expanding their horizons with more diversified recommendations. We can thereby better promote our focus topics while still fulfilling the DW mission.”
The first recommendation applications are set to be implemented next year on the broadcaster’s website. More features could be added in the future including a list of trending topics for the region in which users currently find themselves.
PEACH is a collaborative effort among European broadcasters including DW, Deutschlandradio, LRT, RTÉ, RTP, SR, TG4 and UR under the umbrella of the EBU. The initiative is based on a model where each participating broadcaster contributes developers to a shared team, working towards common goals.
The collective approach extends to sharing infrastructure and operational costs, according to DW, adding that, by pooling resources and expertise, PEACH allows broadcasters to benefit from the diverse knowledge and experiences of their counterparts, fostering innovation and cost-effectiveness in the evolving media landscape.
