ITV and C4 happy to let viewers watch long-form content on YouTube
Connected TV World Summit 2025
UK commercial broadcaster Channel 4 has hailed the success of its strategy to distribute long-form content on YouTube, with Karla Berry, head of distribution and partnerships, stating her confidence that YouTube audiences are additive.
“The data tells us that this is not cannibalising our owned-and-operated,” she said, referring to Channel 4’s broadcaster VOD (BVOD) offering. “When content drops on YouTube after appearing on linear and owned-and-operated (O&O), we see an uplift — so we are confident that YouTube audiences are incremental and drive growth.”
Channel 4 has been making hundreds of hours of full episodes available on YouTube since its landmark 2022 deal with the video-sharing platform — it was thought to be the first of its kind in Europe, allowing Channel 4 to sell the advertising placed against its content.
The broadcaster has gone all in, distributing many of its leading shows (including 8 out of 10 Cats and SAS: Who Dares Wins) on the platform. Channel 4 said in February that views of full episodes on YouTube were up 169% year on year, surpassing 110m organic views in the UK.
Berry told Connected TV World Summit this week that, before the 2022 deal, Channel 4 was using YouTube as a marketing tool to push audiences into its BVOD service but felt YouTube could enable it to reach new audiences.
Lots of test-and-learn has followed to figure out the genres and content windowing that work best to optimise audience growth and incrementality.
“It is not always the same content that works well on O&O and on YouTube. It can be different and reaches slightly different audiences, so we are always experimenting,” Berry told the audience.
The deal Channel 4 agreed means the broadcaster sells the advertising against its content on YouTube, allowing it to offer brands what Berry calls “a premium sell across social to accompany linear and O&O”.
“Advertisers want more of it,” Berry said of Channel 4 on YouTube. “We have a social sales team working with existing advertisers and also reaching out to new advertisers.”
Reaching other audiences
Berry was joined on stage by Akhila Khanna, director of distribution at ITV, which announced a similar partnership with YouTube in December (with the ITV commercial team selling the full range of advertising opportunities associated with the new distribution).
Khanna said: “We are looking at how to drive reach and incremental views, and the YouTube strategy is an opportunity to hit new audiences and grow revenue. The partnership will cover hundreds of hours of content, both short-form and long-form, across all genres.
“Since December, we have been in test-and-learn phase and we are watching the data very closely to understand what does well and drives reach for us. We have set up a sales team focused on YouTube. It is an opportunity for advertisers to have access to ITV’s premium, brand-safe content on a new platform.”
Khanna confirmed that, like at Channel 4, YouTube is seen by ITV as a way to engage audiences where they are, rather than as a marketing tool to push them into BVOD. “It’s about reaching the audiences that are not on ITVX and that is one of the benefits of the partnership for us.”
Announcing the YouTube partnership in December, ITV said it will be showcasing the very best of ITV content, with full episodes from sport, entertainment, documentaries, reality, daytime and news. Genre-based YouTube channels including ITV News and ITV Sport will be developed.
Sky Media, the third of the major UK TV sales houses, also works with YouTube for distribution, mainly focused on short-form content such as sports and news, and also with control of ad sales against it. This strategy has paid off for Sky with incremental reach.
Driving digital viewing
The growing supply of broadcaster content on YouTube will be welcomed by any advertisers that value video-sharing platforms as a place to engage younger audiences, would like to use them on their AV plans but are determined that they must place ads against “fit for TV” content (brand-safe, regulatory-friendly, with editorial oversight).
At both Channel 4 and ITV, the YouTube partnerships are part of wider strategies to drive digital viewing. Channel 4 has a digital-first youth brand called Channel 4.0 that serves original content across YouTube and other social platforms. ITV, meanwhile, recently launched a digital content label called Zoo 55 to take ITV Studios’ content brands further into digital, covering not only YouTube but other social channels and gaming.
The panel also included Yorick Moes, director of strategy at Everyone TV, and was chaired by Victoria Davies, managing director at Accelerate Consulting.
At the Future of TV Advertising Global in December, both ITV’s Kelly Williams and Channel 4’s Alex Mahon discussed their respective YouTube strategies. It’s an approach that Ian Whittaker, who also spoke at the event, disputed, arguing that posting content on YouTube and other social platforms risks devaluing their own propositions.