By Dan Stainsby, Managing Director
Between Sky’s bid for ITV, the prospect of public service media consolidation, and a deepening appreciation of trusted channels as the pool of AI-generated slop elsewhere deepens (will I ever be able trust a cat video again? sob), 2026 is likely to be an eventful but also an exciting time for brands best equipped to grasp the opportunity. Here are some things to look out for.
SkITV? How one deal could redefine the commercial TV landscape.
Sky’s proposed £1.6bn acquisition of ITV’s media and entertainment division, including its free-to-air channels and ITVX, is already being billed as one of the biggest shake-ups in UK TV history.
ITV has confirmed it is in preliminary talks with Comcast-owned Sky about a potential sale of the TV business, separate from ITV Studios. If regulators approve it, the combined entity would become the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster, fusing Sky’s pay-TV and premium sport with ITV’s mass-reach free-to-air footprint.
That creates both risk and opportunity. It could also drive a greater appreciation of earned broadcast media coverage (more below). With more commercial power concentrated in one place, brands that want to punch above their paid weight will need genuinely newsworthy stories and creative formats that earn their place on air. This is an opportunity for the PR sector as well as those media agencies looking for a point of difference.
Could Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) consolidation follow?
Alongside commercial consolidation, 2025 has seen renewed discussion about the future of UK public service broadcasters ahead of the BBC’s Royal Charter renewal in 2027.
Reports in 2024 suggested that the BBC had at least explored the idea of a merger with Channel 4 as one option for shoring up public service media in a streaming-dominated world. Soon after, both broadcasters publicly stressed that any talks were not ongoing and later dismissed full merger claims.
However, if Sky does acquire ITV, surely the prospect of a merger of PSBs makes even more sense. I for one think the combination of the BBC’s global news muscle and brand with Channel 4’s challenger tone and impressive younger adult social engagement figures could be hugely positive.
A renewed appreciation of the power of earned and social media as a broadcast amplifier.
Paid advertising costs on key digital platforms have climbed sharply, with CPMs on channels like Instagram and TikTok rising fast. At the same time, creator and influencer ad spend is exploding, growing four times faster than overall media investment.
Additionally, industry analysis suggests trust in paid is weakening, driving a reappraisal of earned. We’ve known for years that earned media is marketing’s superpower for building credibility and emotional connection, but there will be a growing appreciation, even beyond PR, that paid buys frequency whilst earned buys trust, with the most effective strategies combining the two.
Research from Newsworks has repeatedly shown:
- Anyone can publish on social media but audiences don’t trust all publishers equally.
- UK news brands consistently score higher for trust, attention, accuracy and influence than social platforms.
- People are significantly more likely to remember, share and act on content seen in trusted news-brand environments.
As such, in 2026 broadcast PR will no longer be a “nice add-on” to the paid plan for media agencies. Instead, it will be appreciated as a way to validate and de-risk bold creative, by grounding it in credible editorial programming.
The earned benefits will also be seen well beyond traditional channels, with broadcasters increasingly repurposing the most creative campaigns and newsworthy content for social channels. Our research in 2025 revealed 79% of young adults already follow at least one broadcaster on social media, so there is an opportunity to deliver multi-platform earned waves across social channels.
The definition of a “broadcaster” will keep evolving.
20 years after YouTube introduced us to the slogan “Broadcast Yourself”, the question of who counts as a broadcaster has never been more relevant. In 2026, audiences will move more fluidly between linear TV, on-demand platforms and social feeds than ever before.
In 2026, we’ll see a shift in the mindset of established broadcasters from channel-first thinking to content-first commissioning, where YouTube, TikTok and Instagram are not competitors but additional broadcast platforms.
Some might query why their license fee money is being used to pay for content on these platforms. But ultimately the BBC exists to “inform, educate and entertain”. It can do this via these platforms, reaching audiences who may never tune into a live broadcast. This isn’t dilution of the purpose of Public Service Broadcasting; it’s the licence fee remit being met by meeting audiences where they are.
The trend isn’t confined to the BBC. ITV News clips routinely appear on TikTok; Channel 4’s digital current affairs output is specifically designed for social-native consumption; Sky News’ live streams are now as likely to be viewed on YouTube as via satellite.
PR teams need to be aware that broadcasters are now social publishers. Social platforms are broadcast distributors. Audiences don’t distinguish between them and neither should brands.
In Conclusion
- 2026 won’t reward the brands that spend the most, it will reward the brands that culture trusts most.
- In a consolidated, cross-platform, content-first world, commerce follows credibility, so understand the premium value of trust and the powerful role earned plays.
- The winners will be the brands that build trust in public, create stories people want to share, and treat broadcasters not as channels but as amplifiers.
If correct and 2026 is the year culture fragments, content flows and commerce follows trust, then brands need to:
- Plan for consolidation without over-betting on any one broadcaster.
- Treat earned as the credibility engine of their campaigns.
- Build paid and earned together from the outset, not sequentially.
If you would like to speak to us about capturing the public’s attention through earned media, or maximising the impact of your next PR or marketing campaign, please get in touch.