The halls of the Palais des Festivals have for years been packed full of producers telling you they have a series launching on YouTube. And for a long while, they couldn’t find distribution via traditional means.
However, TV and the Google-owned platform have reached an inflection point. Now, when a producer talks up a YouTube launch, it may well be that they have worked out a solid business model that bypasses networks and global streamers.
Of course, established TV brands such as The Sidemen, MrBeast, Ms. Rachel, CoComelon and Blue Therapy began life on YouTube. The difference now is that any ‘traditional’ production house worth its salt is developing directly for the platform. Even The Traitors maker Studio Lambert, which could surely turnover enough cash purely through its traditional TV business, is in early-stage development on formats that can crack the platform.
The industry shift comes as the pendulum of consumer taste swings from TV to YouTube. YouTube has topped Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge report table in the U.S. for most of 2025, accounting for around 13% of all viewing — a huge turnaround from years past. That shift is manifesting into YouTube becoming a distributor even for established TV shows.
In August, word broke that British comedy series Taskmaster was, for the first time ever, going day-and-date in the U.S. — where it is primarily available on YouTube — with Channel 4’s broadcast in the U.K.
This was after the BAFTA-winning Avalon comedy format’s YouTube channel surpassed 1.2 billion views, with a considerable percentage coming from North America. Season 19, which starred American comic Jason Mantzoukas among its competitors, garnered nearly 20 million North American views and helped subscriptions rise by 200,000.
Taskmaster was remade in the U.S. in 2018 on Comedy Central, but it failed miserably after numerous format changes were made. So, it’s clearly the popularity of YouTube that has built the show’s reputation now in North America. This has reached the point where hosts Greg Davies and Alex Horne have appeared on late-night shows, despite having never appeared on U.S. TV screens. They’ve also hosted sold-out private screenings in New York, while Mantzoukas’ appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers promoting Taskmaster is the late-night show’s second-most streamed interview online — behind Barack Obama.
“It’s ‘culty’, and people have to seek it out for themselves — it’s not promoted out there on Peacock or advertised,” says Horne. “A million Americans is a tiny fraction of their population, but it’s still a hell of a lot of Americans.”
“We’re both absolutely blown away by the response out there from people on the street,” adds Davies. “It was just wonderful.”
There have been noises that a U.S. network might give Taskmaster another try-out, with YouTube now proven as a great audience incubator. Horne and Davies have both said they would want to front Taskmaster U.S. 2.0 and keep control of the production. They are not desperate for it happen, but they will try, if there’s a willing buyer. “We would love to do an American version, and do it properly, but we’re not courting it,” says Horne. Perhaps YouTube is enough.