The panel focused on the platform's growing role in broadcasting and the channel's audience expansion and rising engagement, especially in documentary formats

l-r: Neil Price, Matt Risley and James White during the panel (© Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images)

"YouTube & UK Broadcasters: The Perfect Partners?" This question was the title and topic of an insightful panel at IET London: Savoy Place on 24 February, during the first edition of MIP London. The event was moderated by James White, COO at Intellygence Consultancy Ltd.

Neil Price, Film and TV Partnership Lead at YouTube UK, opened the discussion by explaining how broadcasters have increasingly recognised YouTube’s importance, leading to more partnerships. “YouTube has been built with the desire to connect audiences with content they really enjoy, whether that’s individual creators, sport highlights, great long form documentaries,” Price stated. He noted that some customers focus on expanding their audience, while others are working on revenue potential.

Matt Risley, Managing Director at 4Studio, followed by describing Channel 4’s relationship with the content hub: “We do multiple things on YouTube: we have marketing and audience building [...], then we are publishing now the vast majority of our longer film content on there, viewing it through a distributions lens. That is seeing a huge growth year on year.”

At the end of 2024, they noticed a rise of 170% in the views of full episodes of long formats, with revenues going up by around 80%. Documentary content’s appeal has also been increasing significantly and it has now reached five dedicated YouTube channels. “I was looking at data the other week, and in January we had nine thousand years of watch time on only one channel,” he noted. Risley brought as an example Channel 4’s documentary series Seeking Satoshi: The Mystery Bitcoin Creator, released in short segments on 4Adventure, one of their YouTube channels, alongside a traditional streaming proposal.

4Studio, launched five years ago, was designed to rethink how broadcasters engage with audiences across different platforms. Risley introduced Channel 4.0, describing it as “essentially creating a proposition that was trying to solve a problem, which is trying to build and nurture a very youth-focused audience, in the place where they are spending time, with talents that they care about, with formats that resonate.” In 2024, 80% of their UK audience was aged 13-34, and given its success, similar initiatives are in the making.

Price emphasised YouTube’s role in hosting diverse content: “Ultimately, we want the platform to be the place where people can see themselves reflected. We are not commissioners, we are not deciding anything. The audience decides, based on the engagement and the time they spend on videos.” He then pointed out that long-form content performs well, especially as “living room consumption” increases. On co-financing with traditional broadcasters, Price clarified that while there is some history, YouTube’s main value lies in providing tools to reach audiences and build communities rather than commissioning content.

Related to this goal, YouTube provides analytics to help content creators understand performance. “We try to make this as transparent as possible, so that you can continue to succeed. In the end, it’s a revenue share, so your success is the platform’s success. If no one is watching your content, no ads are being served and consumed, and there is no money being generated for YouTube either.” He concluded by talking about the possibility for well-positioned partners that have an in-house capability to sell their own inventory to empower their return on investment via YouTube.