MEDIA CONTENT RANKINGS FOR DISCOVERY OF NOVEL CONTENT

A content provider system ranks media content items with respect to a particular user based on selection scores determined for each of the media content items. The selection scores may be determined using a particular model that calculates a predicted selection score based on feature values associated with the content item with respect to the particular user. The feature values may indicate properties of the media content item, the particular user, or the particular user's relationship with the content item, including information about the novelty of the media content item with respect to the user. The particular model may be trained with sample user consumption data points that represent various combinations of media content items and users. The data point information evaluated during the training of the particular model may cause the model to assign higher selection scores to content items that are novel in particular ways.