Distribution deal covers shows including SAS: Who Dares Wins and The Dog House

SAS 3

SAS: Who Dares Wins

Channel 4 has struck a deal with YouTube to make 1000 hours of its shows available, after Broadcast revealed talks were underway in January.

Under the ‘strategic partnership’, hundreds of hours of full episodes of C4 and E4 shows including 8 Out Of 10 Cats; SAS: Who Dares Wins; Gemma Collins: Self-Harm and Me; Kathy Burke: Money Talks; Location, Location, Location and The Dog House will be streamed via the Google-owned service.

Selected shows will be made available to watch on YouTube 30 days after being broadcast, with the deal due to get underway in May.

C4 will sell the ads around the programming itself and will create a dedicated YouTube team within its 4Sales division.

The deal forms part of the five-year Future 4 plan to grow digital revenues to account for 30% of total income by 2025, with C4 keen to reach the 98% of online 18-34s who use YouTube each month.

A previous long-running partnership between the companies was terminated in 2014 amid concerns from C4 surrounding the commercial and data terms.

C4 chief exec Alex Mahon said: “Innovative strategic partnerships are C4’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 unrivalled digital success.

This will engage even more viewers through the enhanced reach and digital scale of YouTube, combined with the dynamism of the Channel 4 brand.”

YouTube UK & Ireland managing director Ben McOwen Wilson added: “As an open platform, YouTube is where UK 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.”