YouTube partners major European TV players for YouTube Shows launch in UK, Germany

Pedro Pina at Mipcom

S. CHAMPEAUX / IMAGE&CO

MIPCOM: YouTube has partnered with some of Europe’s biggest TV production and distribution groups for the launch of a new tool in the UK and Germany that will allow them to better surface full episodes and seasons of their shows.

Google’s video streaming behemoth, once castigated and litigated against by the industry for being a hotbed of copyright infringement, is celebrating its 20th anniversary here in Cannes this week with its first major Mipcom presence, on a charm offensive to persuade more TV partners to embrace it.

Plenty have done so already as the platform has grown in scale and become the number one streaming service on television in the US. In Europe, that shift is gaining momentum, which will likely hasten with the introduction of a new TV-centric method of serving up full episodes and series, called YouTube Shows.

The initiative has been in the offing for some time but YouTube today revealed partnerships with RTL, ProSieben, ARD, ITV Studios’ Zoo55, Little Dot Studios, Fremantle and Banijay that will see these take advantage of the new tech in Germany and the UK.

In addition, the firm unveiled alliances with NBCUniversal, Paramount, Lionsgate, Wild Bunch Germany, Kontor New Media, Signature Entertainment, Arrow Films, Spirit Entertainment and The Movie Partnership that will give German and British audiences access to TV and movie titles from those studios.

Films including Aviator, The Hunger Games, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Hostage and Margin Call, will all be available for free with ads.

“YouTube is a strategic accelerator for any modern media business. We are the discovery engine that fuels global reach, multi-format engagement and data-driven innovation,” said YouTube EMEA VP Pedro Pina, who was speaking in Cannes alongside BBC Studios senior VP of digital Jasmine Dawson.

According to the company, TV and film content on YouTube on connected TVs already represents over 25% of total living room watch time in Germany and over 15% in the UK, as of the first quarter of this year.

Research outfit Gemius also reported that YouTube reached 21 million people aged 16-plus in Germany on connected TVs in September 2024, and according to Ipsos Iris, over 51% of UK over-18s watched YouTube on connected TVs in May 2025.

For more on how YouTube’s relationship with the TV has evolved over its 20-year history, see our special series of C21investigates deep-dive articles.