Insight

I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that by Ben Goldacre tackles data misuse and misunderstanding in many and varied fields. The central theme is that most questions do not have a straight-forward, black and white, yes or no answer. And we should be wary of those that do not want to be peer-reviewed or to publish their data openly.

His field is primarily medicine. Fascinating, I hear you say, but why should we care? Aside from the clear parallel to openness in audience measurement, I think it neatly sums up the way we should think about a seemingly simple question like this: is YouTube TV?

Is YouTube TV?

For starters, YouTube itself is a platform, a means of access. What we are really talking about is the content viewers watch on YouTube. Is that content TV or not?

You can watch YouTube content on your TV set – and our data show that the TV set is the most popular device for people in the UK to use when watching YouTube at home. Many TV companies, including Channel 4, Sky and ITV, are making their content available on YouTube. This is obviously TV.

But it’s more complicated than that. What about the other content on YouTube? There are countless (almost literally) videos of people giving DIY tips, falling over, talking about cats, or their personal views on sport, politics or a Kardashian. There’s even a video of me getting covered in orange juice (long story). This content, watched via YouTube, is not TV – and it’s disingenuous to argue that it is. It’s also worth noting that more than half of time spent watching YouTube at home is on smartphones, PCs and tablets. That may not be directly relevant to the content, but it materially changes the viewer experience, which is relevant.

All the world’s a stage – but stages host more than just plays

Perhaps theatre can provide a useful comparison. All theatres have a stage. The stage gives audiences access to content. But is everything that audiences witness on the stage a play? Obviously not. We have plays, operas, musicals, recitals, comedy, lectures and so on. If we said a Jimmy Carr stand-up comedy show was a play just because it’s on a stage, we would be rightly laughed at more than one of Jimmy’s notoriously dark jokes.

TV companies and YouTube are becoming more symbiotic

While the is YouTube TV? question is debated feverishly on LinkedIn, it seems clear that TV companies, streamers and YouTube are becoming more intertwined. We are just at the beginning of this journey – for example, viewing time to Channel 4, Sky and ITV via YouTube is less than 1% of time with the channel portfolios from those companies in any given month. But, equally clearly, there is growth in the amount of time viewers find content from these channels via YouTube.

Chart 1: Audiences increasingly find TV companies’ content on YouTube

Source: Barb. Viewing to any Channel 4, Sky or ITV channel with a VOD Provider of YouTube. January 1st 2023 – August 31st 2025.

Talent crossover has been happening for at least a decade

As audiences find TV companies’ content on YouTube, it makes sense that those companies want to provide content that they recognise. As such, we see the move to get YouTube creators’ content on to TV companies’ channels and streamers.

This is not new. Joe Sugg began posting videos on YouTube in 2012. By 2016, E4 had broadcast the film Joe & Caspar Hit the Road to an audience of 257k. By 2018, millions were watching him reach the final of Strictly Come Dancing on BBC1 with Dianne Buswell.

Amelia Dimoldenberg has been making her Chicken Shop Date YouTube series for ten years. In 2018, she presented the Channel 4 documentary Meet the Markles for an audience of 553k. This has been followed by numerous other ITV and Channel 4 appearances.

The ability to make direct comparisons is new

What is new is our ability to now directly compare the TV-set audience for YouTube channel content and TV company / streamer content from the same creator. In our upcoming Barb Briefing, we will look at examples from Mr Beast and Ms. Rachel.

We are also measuring TV-set YouTube viewing to three channels from the UK collective Sidemen. In early 2024, the documentary film The Sidemen Story launched on Netflix. It drew a 7-day audience of 707k. The largest 7-day audience we’ve measured so far to a Sidemen video on YouTube is 60k to the video SIDEMEN AMONG US MEGA CHAOS MODE. This appeared on the MoreSidemen channel and was measured from August 11th this year.

This echoes what we’ve seen elsewhere: YouTube creators appear to attract larger UK TV-set audiences on streamers and TV companies’ channels than on YouTube itself.

TV companies’ reach compares favourably to measured YouTube channels

Some might argue that it’s nonsensical to compare 7-day audiences, since that tries to fit YouTube into an established television metric. That’s a reasonable enough argument – YouTube is a different kind of platform to a TV channel or streamer.

Weekly reach is potentially a fairer comparison. If we add TV companies’ channel reach via YouTube to our list of most-watched YouTube channels based on weekly reach, we see that TV companies would take three of the top 10 spots.

Three in 10 of the top-reaching channels on YouTube are TV companies’ channels

Source: Barb. September 8th – 14th 2025. TV-set only. Barb’s reporting for YouTube is based on viewing that takes place at home through a WiFi router.

The AV ecosystem includes YouTube

So, while we should be wary of oversimplified assessments of the AV ecosystem in the UK, one thing is beyond doubt – YouTube is part of that ecosystem. It enables viewers to access content that would happily sit on TV channels or streamers. But much of the content on YouTube could not make that switch.

Talent that originated on YouTube appear on TV channels and streamers, while some talent goes in the opposite direction – Piers Morgan, for example.

If YouTube is like a theatrical stage, it’s also like an open-mic night. Some acts are booed off stage, some are gold. When the gold surfaces, it finds an audience and moves on to more established venues.

YouTube hosts open-mic nights and the acts that play established venues. It’s a platform hosting content that is and isn’t TV. It’s complicated. Beware those who tell you it’s not!

Doug Whelpdale, Head of Insight, Barb

Doug also shares some of these insights in the following video:

For more insight into what we’ve learnt from our first seven weeks of viewing data for 200 of the most-watched YouTube channels, join us at The Next Episode: A Barb Briefing Event on September 30th. Register here to attend.