News this week from the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB) that YouTube has surpassed the BBC in viewing share has been widely framed as a tipping point. Some read it as a final nail in the future of public service broadcasting in a platform-led age.

But having spent ten years as a BBC journalist, another decade as a freelance content producer and academic, as well as the past five years as an Ofcom Content Board member, my instinct at times like this is to pause.

Audience measurement in a fragmented media landscape is complex. Anyone working in the industry knows that figures like those contained in this latest report from Barb – the independent UK body that measures and provides audience data for TV and video – have long been treated with caution. They capture something meaningful, but not the whole picture.

It’s important to be transparent about how Barb arrives at its numbers. Viewing is captured through two main methods: people-based data from the Barb panel; and device-based census data for online TV viewing. Both are well-established approaches, but both are proxies. They rely on standard assumptions about attention and behaviour in a world where people are increasingly watching across multiple platforms at the same time.

One television or “a view” doesn’t necessarily mean one viewer. A clip playing on a second screen doesn’t mean it’s being actively engaged with. And in an environment of constant choice, people don’t always remember what they’ve seen, let alone where they’ve seen it. The sheer volume of content means attention is often fleeting and fragmented. All of this matters when we interpret the recent headlines like this.

Rather than framing this story as YouTube versus the BBC, a more productive approach would be to look at what’s happening in practice. Audiences are still watching the BBC content via YouTube. The real job now is to understand which BBC content is travelling, how it’s being encountered and what that means for public service value when context and branding are no longer guaranteed.

Large volumes of BBC output circulate widely on YouTube: drama clips, comedy moments, documentary sequences, music performances, children’s favourites, archive footage and cultural highlights. Often re-edited or consumed in fragments, this content reaches audiences far beyond the BBC’s own services.

When that happens, YouTube gets the credit for reach and scale. The BBC’s role as commissioner, curator and public service institution can quietly recede into the background. In that sense, this moment may be less about YouTube overtaking the BBC, and more about where BBC content now lives, and how it is experienced, remembered and understood.

This shift hasn’t happened overnight. Ofcom’s 2025 Media Nations report has been pointing in this direction for years. Audiences consistently say they value high-quality UK content and trusted brands, yet they increasingly encounter that content via platforms rather than broadcasters. Discovery is driven by algorithms, not schedules; viewing is on demand, not appointment-based. Context becomes optional.

That fundamentally changes the relationship between content and audience. The BBC still operates with public service values embedded across its output, standards around accuracy, care, accessibility, representation and responsibility. Those values shape everything from Planet Earth, to Newsround or big TV events like The Traitors.

BBC chatshow host Graham Norton’s best bits are widely viewed on YouTube.

YouTube, by contrast, is an open ecosystem. It hosts exceptional creativity and storytelling alongside commentary, parody, reaction content and material that lacks context or accountability. The platform doesn’t distinguish between public service content and everything else: that’s down to viewers.

Purpose, reach and intent

From my time at Ofcom, one thing has been consistently clear: audiences don’t lack intelligence or curiosity. What they often lack is context (and sometimes memory). When content is encountered in fragments, across platforms, mixed with countless other videos, it becomes harder to recognise what you’ve watched, where it came from, or what values shaped it.

Public service broadcasting has never just been about reach. It has been about intent. BBC content is designed to entertain, educate, reflect the UK back to itself and provide shared cultural reference points. When that content is consumed in isolation, one clip among many, some of that public service value risks being diluted, even when the content itself remains strong.

In that context, it’s hardly surprising that this debate coincides with reports, including from Reuters, that the BBC is moving towards a formal content partnership with YouTube. In many ways, that simply acknowledges a reality audiences have already created.

So when I look at these latest Barb figures, I don’t see a simple story of decline or defeat. I see a signal – imperfect, partial, but still useful – pointing to a deeper transformation in how public service content circulates in a platform-led world.

The more important question isn’t whether YouTube has beaten the BBC, it’s whether we are paying close enough attention to which BBC content is thriving on YouTube, how audiences are encountering it, and whether its public service value remains visible once the familiar containers fall away.

Because in a media environment defined by abundance, distraction and imperfect measurement, public service values don’t disappear. They just need more help to be seen and understood.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.