UK broadcasters have started more wholly embracing YouTube as a distribution platform in the last couple of years. Channel 4 struck a deal to start running full episodes of some of its TV shows on YouTube back in 2022, and more recently has begun producing content specifically for the platform via its Channel 4.0 brand. ITV agreed a similar deal at the end of last year, and has begun making some of its series available on YouTube.
New data from Ipsos iris, which measures online audiences, suggests that these strategies are paying off in delivering significant extra reach and viewership. The measurement company says that ITV, Channel 4, the BBC and Sky collectively saw a significant jump in YouTube viewership in May, with nearly one in three UK internet users aged 15+ watching content from one of these four broadcasters on their mobile, tablet, or PC. Since this figure excludes connected TV, where YouTube is strong in the UK, it’s likely that total viewership would have been higher still.
The BBC tops the charts in terms of total views, with a total audience of 9.5 million, and 219 million views across the month. ITV meanwhile has the most minutes watched, with 284 million, and Channel 4 has the longest average watch time, of 7 minutes and 10 seconds.
Judging by other available data, this represents a significant boost to total reach and viewership. ITV, for example, reported at the end of Q1 this year that it had one billion streams across the quarter, presumably averaging out somewhere around 340 million per month. The 63 million views it found on YouTube, across 8.7 million viewers, is a fairly significant addition to this figure.
Of course, a view on YouTube isn’t the same thing as a view on a broadcaster’s own streaming platform, for several reasons. Broadcasters distribute a lot of clips and highlights from their shows alongside any full episodes they put out on YouTube, meaning an average YouTube view is likely to be significantly shorter than a view on their own platform. As the Ipsos iris data shows, the average length of a video view is far shorter than the length of an average episode of a TV show.
Thus, the opportunities to run ads will be fewer. And while the commercial details of the deals broadcasters have struck with YouTube aren’t known, presumably the economics aren’t as favourable as on their own platforms.
One of the big questions for broadcasters though will be whether their reach on YouTube is incremental to the reach of their own services — particularly if YouTube is reaching any valuable younger viewers which their own platforms aren’t. Regardless of how well YouTube performs in terms of monetisation for broadcasters, if it’s helping extend the total reach they’re able to offer their advertising partners, it could be crucial in helping them win bigger and more diverse ad budgets.
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