Primetime Isn’t Over: How YouTube Could Save Pay TV 📺
Primetime Channels is still “nascent,” but it deserves far more attention. Currently available in the US, Germany and the UK, it allows fans to subscribe to premium services directly within YouTube.
On today’s episode, I’m joined by Rob Pilgrim, Head of Sport & Primetime at YouTube EMEA.
In this conversation, we explore what that future looks like through the lens of YouTube CEO Neal Mohan’s four big bets: AI, Creators as Studios, The Living Room, and Protecting the Creator Economy.
If you care about how sport is being reshaped by platforms and creators, this one’s a must-listen.
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BIG IDEA
Primetime Isn’t Over: How YouTube Could Save Pay TV 📺
We’re well past the phase of explaining why YouTube matters in sport. Everyone gets it, especially for new challenger sports properties looking for reach.
What’s less understood is how YouTube is starting to reshape the value of premium sport. And not by undermining traditional broadcasters, but by removing the friction around them.
Rob Pilgrim, YouTube’s Head of Sport & Primetime for EMEA, joined me on the Sports Pundit Podcast recently. What stood out was how intentional he, and YouTube, have been about not trying to replace broadcasters, but working with them.
“I’m really comfortable with how core broadcasters are to our strategy. It’s been a big feature of my tenure in this role,” Pilgrim said. “We want to go with the grain of the industry. We want to work with the existing broadcast ecosystem because they are so brilliant at what they do.”
A good and frequently referenced example is Brazil’s CazéTV, which streamed the 2022 World Cup on YouTube with permission from domestic rights holder Globo. Millions watched on Cazé’s channel, yet Globo’s TV audience stayed steady.
“It wasn’t cannibalistic. It didn’t take from one and give to the other. But the millions and millions of viewers that CazéTV brought in increased the overall audience. It was additive.”
It’s not that fans of CazéTV were going to YouTube instead of Globo (they weren’t going to Globo anyway). Instead you need to consider the framing that it was an on-ramp that brings new viewers into the sports ecosystem who may not have entered otherwise. He’s currently doing the same for the FIFA Club World Cup.
We’ve seen this approach elsewhere too. Sky Sports and DAZN have both used YouTube to push visibility around women’s football, treating it as a free-to-air distribution layer to build interest and momentum.
But YouTube as a free content platform is only part of the story.
Primetime Channels is still “nascent,” but it deserves far more attention. Available in the US, Germany, and the UK, it lets fans subscribe to premium services directly within YouTube — no app-switching, no extra logins, no new payment details. Just a seamless path from a highlight to the full broadcast.
This is especially important as rights continue to be split between different services. In the last few years, Pilgrim says searches for “Where to watch” have increased sevenfold (using Google Trends data).
Primetime Channels won’t solve the fragmentation of sports rights entirely, but it helps to simplify the experience, acting as a connective layer that brings the pieces back together.
“Through things like Primetime Channels, we can start to help solve for that. We can collapse that funnel,” said Pilgrim. “From watching something for free, like a trailer, a press conference, or a preview,” he continued, “to the main event, like a football game on the weekend.”
“In a couple of clicks, the user can find their way to the main event. That’s what we think is really exciting about the technology we’re developing.”
Where YouTube once sat at the top of the funnel, only helping broadcasters like Sky attract viewers to their own platform, now the entire customer journey can happen within YouTube itself. Broadcasters can still charge for access, retain ownership of the relationship, and build loyalty. They just don’t need to send viewers elsewhere.
Mid-roll ads that trigger after goals, channel memberships, built-in shopping, and the standard ad split all offer them additional ways to earn revenue on the platform. Partner sales (which allow broadcasters to sell their own inventory alongside their linear deals) have also been instrumental in bringing them on board.
As YouTube’s monetisation tools continue to develop, more content and more partners will inevitably follow. So it’s almost certainly a misconception that YouTube signals the end of pay-TV.
In reality, it can strengthen it. With less friction, premium content can still be paid for (as well as monetised in smarter, more flexible ways).
Once seen purely as a reach tool, YouTube is becoming an increasingly powerful engine for conversion.
If you're a broadcaster, a league, or a club, the question isn’t whether to be on YouTube (that’s already quite clear). The question is how to use it best for your specific strategy and needs.
SP PODCAST
#58 Rob Pilgrim: Making YouTube the Best Digital Destination for Sports Fans
On today’s episode, I’m joined by Rob Pilgrim, Head of Sport & Primetime at YouTube EMEA.
Rob has spent the last eight years leading YouTube’s end-to-end sports business across the region, from commercial deals and product launches to strategy and societal impact. He’s helped build a team that’s landed global rights deals, launched paid products like Primetime Channels, and championed the platform’s role in accelerating the growth of women’s sport.
In this conversation, we explore what that future looks like — through the lens of YouTube CEO Neal Mohan’s four big bets: AI, Creators as Studios, The Living Room, and Protecting the Creator Economy. If you care about how sport is being reshaped by platforms and creators, this one’s a must-listen.
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