UK multi-channel broadcaster UKTV will double down on its YouTube and social media strategy after posting record ratings and audience share figures during 2025.
Last year marked the company’s strongest year to date across social media, with UKTV’s social team delivering 758 million social video views (up 29% year-on-year), driving close to 400,000 visitors to streamer U.
In late summer, the social division evolved its YouTube strategy, shifting from channel-led brands to genre-based destinations designed for a YouTube-first audience.
This saw YouTube channels U&YESTERDAY and U&Dave relaunched as U&Transport and U&Laughs respectively, alongside a refresh of the core U channel. The team also launched its first single-IP channel, U&Bangers & Cash, dedicated to factual series Bangers & Cash. Collectively, the new channel portfolio delivered 4.1 million hours of watch time (up 243%), according to UKTV.
Buoyed by that success, UKTV said it will continue to experiment with full episode drops on the Google-owned video sharing platform during 2026.
