Media businesses have had a love-hate relationship with YouTube. As a competitor for ad revenue, it has been a thorn in their sides. But as an audience development and discovery platform it has been part of their video strategy for decades.

That makes sense: the platform has grown over the last two decades into a service that’s  too big to ignore. Last year it reportedly generated $60bn in revenue, indicative of its might. Even the most reticent broadcaster has experimented with dropping short highlights onto the service. It has also proven to be an excellent place to host video podcasts, with the visual element acting as a multiplying factor in terms of views.

Most importantly, however, YouTube has been consistent in delivering views to its biggest channels.

That consistency will be a welcome respite for publishers. With AI-powered search results reportedly cutting traffic to news sites’ by up to 79%, it’s understandable that they would look to increase their presence on a platform that is, at least, reliable in at least one way. 

To that end we have seen a number of news sites recruiting for YouTube-specialist video producers, suggesting that the platform is climbing publishers’ priority lists in 2026. The Reuters Institute’s ‘Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2026’ found that “in terms of off-platform strategies, YouTube will be the main focus for publishers this year with a net score of +74, up substantially on last year”.

In the UK, for example, Reach Plc’s CFO Darren Fisher noted that Facebook and YouTube “are increasingly rewarding, engaging content”, in the face of falling digital revenue elsewhere. 

Where before the platform might have been seen as a source of supplementary ad revenue, it is now being factored into audience acquisition strategies more directly, as legacy media seeks ways to turn off-platform engagement into a viable audience development strategy.

In the UK the platform is the second most-watched service in the UK, behind the BBC and ahead of the commercial-powered ITV. That provides media businesses with a reliable opportunity to scoop up new fans, who can either be monetized through ads on the platform or converted to paying subscribers on the business’ own site.

YouTube personalities

Typically, the channels that succeed on YouTube have a recurring team of creators and on-camera talent, which is consistent with video consumption trends and preferences. This format, aping the traditional television content alongside which YouTube increasingly competes on CTV, is increasingly personality-driven. There are YouTube news stars whose fame eclipses that of traditional television.

That presents a big shift for some media businesses who typically put the brand front and center over individual journalists.

Chris Gallipeau, director of video and audio strategy at Canada-based Postmedia notes that, indeed, the team has found personality-led content – or at least videos with consistent hosts – has worked especially well across its brands/ “We’ve also found that having a consistent host or voice makes a big impact on engagement, he said. “Videos with a familiar, regular personality often see viewership double compared to those without. 

“The best performing voices or faces are often well-known contributors and popular names from our opinion and commentary sections of the newspapers where audiences already have a strong connection to their perspectives.”

Similarly, The Sun’s Director of Video Jon Lloyd explains that works well on YouTube, with its reliance on thumbnails that prominently feature the hosts:

“We have found through hosts, shows are more likely to become appointment viewing  with viewers. Our viewers for Tactics Exposed love Dean Scoggins and Will Pugh’s football expertise – and let us know in the comments. They come back to it weekly as they know they’re going to have a clearer understanding of the game. They might stay through any dips if they recognize and trust the person speaking, which leads to longer listening sessions and higher completion rates.”

As an example, the group’s Vancouver Sun editor-in-chief Harold Munro is a frequent face on the paper’s channel, speaking with various members of the team in explainer style shortform videos. Some publications have a leg up on that approach, having monetized their personality-led podcasts on the platform for years. 

Chris Stone, executive producer of podcasts and video at the New Statesman, says: “That video extends our audience reach on YouTube but also on social platforms. The purpose of that is to grow the top of our funnel. Having video helps to expand your reach on socials, that’s certainly what’s happening with us… and the easiest way to produce that is from our podcasts.”

Consistency and growth

Gallipeau explains that, even if the form of the journalism has necessarily changed, the group’s editorial strategy is an extension of its coverage elsewhere: “Postmedia has found success in both long and short-form video content on YouTube especially for our major news brands. 

“What seems to really drive success is the topic. For brands like National Post and The Toronto Sun, there is a big appetite for federal and provincial political content. When we produce videos on those subjects, regardless of length, it generally outperforms the average video.”

That lines up with research about the news consumption habits of US adults. Per a Pew Research Center study, 35% of US adults self-report that they ‘regularly’ get news from YouTube channels.

The big question is the extent to which YouTube will remain consistent and prioritize that sort of news-led content within its algorithm. Writing for Nieman Lab, Joon Lee argues that, as it gets squeezed by Netflix, YouTube has recognized the need for legitimacy of the sort that legacy media can confer. 

As Lee puts it, “YouTube doesn’t need journalism to boost ad revenue. It needs journalism to anchor its reputational power in the same way newspapers once anchored civic life.”

Shorts and resources

While YouTube might want legacy content to increase its legitimacy, publishers do have to tailor their content to each platform if they want to succeed. 

Charlie Carmichael, Head of Audience at talkSPORT, states that the brand has seen some significant uptick in subscribers as a result of taking advantage of the subchannel option on YouTube. “This platform-first mindset helped us grow our YouTube revenue by 30% YoY in 2025,” he said. “In addition to diversifying our audience and reducing the talkSPORT main channel’s share of views from 81% to 67%. It’s also unlocked new partnership opportunities, and we’ve increasingly experimented with live-streaming non-traditional rights.”

However, despite a media brand’s popularity on shelves or screens, there is plenty more competition on the video site. As a result there are examples of best practice that even the biggest news brands have to adhere to, particularly with regards to recurring personalities and recognizable series.

Gallipeau explains: “On some of our larger brands, we work to apply YouTube best practices to help our video content stand out. We’ve also found great success in using formats like YouTube Shorts to raise awareness and drive traffic to our channels. This has a significant impact on subscriber and viewership growth.”

The benefit of committing to the Shorts format is that – while tweaking is still required – it allows media business’ YouTube efforts to bear fruit elsewhere. 

At the New York Times, for example, the video team is investing heavily in vertical video of the sort that can sit on YouTube Shorts in addition to TikTok and Instagram. The paper’s video director Solana Pyne told The Hollywood Reporter that “our videos live both on our own platform and on a whole range of social platforms, Instagram, TikTok, also YouTube. We don’t make video that would live only or thrive only on one platform.”

Unsurprisingly, many other newspapers are making their video content work harder on the platform. 

The Guardian, for example, repurposes sections of its longform explainers for the Shorts section. It acts as both a trailer for the ‘main’ video and an antennae that reaches the subsection of the YouTube audience that primarily consumes Shorts.

As YouTube climbs publisher and broadcasters’ priority lists in the face of uncertainty elsewhere, they are to some extent dancing to the platform’s tune in terms of video format Personality-led videos and the parasocial relationships they create with an audience are the order of the day, and Shorts are practically mandatory for discovery.

Alex Rothwell, Head of Video for The Times and The Sunday Times, notes that the team has identified that different forms of video on the platform work towards different ends. He said, “We have different approaches to our multiple YouTube channels to serve specific goals; revenue, audience growth, or a combination of the two.”

He does note, though, that maintaining a consistent identity across those channels is key: “Across all of our YouTube output, we maintain a consistent visual identity by using The Times thumbnail branding. We’ve also developed repeatable formats – such as Explains, Investigates, and Documentaries – which help build a loyal audience over time by establishing a clear and recognisable editorial identity.”

YouTube, then, presents legacy publishers with an opportunity to widen the top of the funnel when it comes to acquiring audiences. It is, though, still a platform over which publishers and broadcasters have next to no control; the trick is in gaming its ability to concentrate audiences around a news channel while increasing investment with the brand itself.