In a decisive shift away from legacy broadcast-only models, ITV fully integrated YouTube into its content and commercial strategy throughout late 2024 and early 2025. Rather than using YouTube purely as a promotional channel, ITV transitioned to treating the platform as a core pillar of its distribution architecture, publishing full-length episodes, launching thematic channels, and creating dedicated sales and production teams to support its commercial goals.

This strategic pivot has marked one of the most innovative moves yet to harness social video at scale, not just to build reach, but to monetise it in line with premium TV standards.

From Clips to Full-Length: ITV Scales Up Content Distribution

Prior to this shift, ITV’s YouTube footprint focused largely on clips, promos, and highlights. Content that was designed to support its linear and BVOD channels. That model changed in November 2024, when ITV began uploading full episodes to its flagship channel. By February 2025, long-form had become the dominant format across newly branded genre-specific channels including ITV Entertainment, ITV Retro, ITV Quiz, ITV Drama, and ITV Real Life Stories.

Titles such as Thunderbirds, Deal or No Deal, Victoria and Love Island USA appeared as full-episode marathons, moving ITV into direct competition with streamers and digital-first publishers for watch time on social platforms. At the same time, older ITV content libraries found renewed life with a digital-first audience, supported by curated content drops, nostalgia-led playlists, and repackaged formats aimed at mobile viewing.

This approach mirrored strategies already seen from competitors like Channel 4 but took a step further by reformatting ITV’s channel architecture to suit YouTube’s discovery mechanics, optimising content not just for engagement, but also for monetisation and sustained algorithmic reach.

Commercial Infrastructure Built Around Platform-Specific Needs

Critically, ITV didn’t just upload content, it restructured to monetise it effectively. A dedicated YouTube sales team was established within ITV Commercial, led by a newly appointed Head of YouTube Sales. This team was tasked with selling inventory directly around ITV’s content on YouTube, controlling ad formats and offering buyers advanced targeting options typical of digital platforms such as genre, programme, demographic, and device-based segmentation.

ITV Studios also launched Zoo 55, a digital content label specifically designed to manage ITV’s presence on YouTube and generate platform-native material such as compilations, highlight reels, and fan-centric edits. These initiatives helped ITV retain control over rights, creative, and monetisation, ensuring platform use complemented rather than cannibalised its core IP.

This vertical integration of content production, channel management, and ad sales positioned ITV to capture both brand and performance budgets that may not have traditionally gone to TV, creating a new revenue stream outside of broadcast or BVOD.

To provide some useful context on the speed of growth in the broadcaster YouTube space, and the resonance it has had with our partner brands and viewers, over 200 brands have partnered with ITV already; and two thirds of ITV YouTube viewers are likely to consider a featured brand in their ad space.

A Signal of Broader Industry Realignment

ITV’s YouTube strategy reflected a wider rethinking of what it means to be a broadcaster in a digital-first world. Rather than seeing YouTube as a threat or a mere promotional lever, ITV engaged with it as a full-scale content and commercial ecosystem. It redefined the boundaries between television and digital publishing, proving that traditional IP can thrive on algorithmic platforms, if it is repackaged, targeted, and monetised correctly.

This move demonstrated that broadcasters need not choose between protecting linear audiences and expanding digital reach. By bringing premium, brand-safe, and highly targeted video inventory to YouTube, ITV widened its addressable market and future-proofed its monetisation strategy in a way that aligns with both audience behaviour and advertiser demand.

Abul Noor, ITV’s head of YouTube sales ‘’Once you get into the top end [of reach curves] at 80%+, finding 2-4% in addition to that is really compelling,’ ‘’ The more people watching, the more people that can discover that content, the more we can offer our advertisers from a commercial point of view.’’- source

If this topic interests you, a related discussion took place at our recent CEO Summit, where two egta members, ZDF Studios (Germany) and TV3 (Lithuania), shared their own approaches to YouTube distribution. It offers an insightful look at how different broadcasters are navigating similar strategic shifts. Please find the link to the TV session here.

Source: egta.com