Channel 4 & YouTube Expand Partnership

Channel 4 is extending its strategic partnership with YouTube to make hundreds of hours of programming available on the streaming platform in the U.K. and Ireland.

The partnership with YouTube will make 1,000 hours of full Channel 4 and E4 episodes from new and popular series available to watch across Channel 4’s YouTube network by the end of 2022. Content will start to roll out this month.

Among the shows set for YouTube are 8 Out Of 10 Cats; SAS: Who Dares Wins; Nikki Grahame: Who Is She?; Unapologetic; Location, Location, Location; Gemma Collins: Self-Harm and Me; Davina McCall’s Language of Love; Kathy Burke: Money Talks; The Dog House; and Devon & Cornwall. Selected programs will be made available to watch on YouTube 30 days after first being broadcast on Channel 4 and E4, as part of a wider syndication strategy.

Additionally, the partnership enables Channel 4 to sell its own advertising around these shows, marking the first deal of its kind across the U.K. and Europe. A dedicated YouTube team will be set up within Channel 4’s commercial arm 4Sales, to enable Channel 4 to directly sell advertising around its content on the platform.

Alex Mahon, chief executive of Channel 4, said: “Innovative strategic partnerships are Channel 4’s speciality, and this new relationship with YouTube is another which will ensure we continue to keep growing our reach with young audiences and build on our unrivaled digital success.

“Together with YouTube, we have created a powerful consumer channel full of our brilliant Channel 4 content. This will engage even more viewers through the enhanced reach and digital scale of YouTube, combined with the dynamism of the Channel 4 brand.”

Ben McOwen Wilson, managing director of YouTube for the U.K. and Ireland, said: “I’m proud to welcome Channel 4’s creative, thought-provoking long-form content onto the YouTube platform.

“As an open platform, YouTube is where U.K. audiences of all ages and backgrounds come to watch what they want to watch when they want to watch it. It is fantastic to drive innovative partnerships such as this, to enable leading broadcasters to contribute to the diversity of content on the platform of choice for young viewers.”