How Youtube is Killing The TV Industry

And not in the way most people think…

Despite often being described as one of the world’s biggest “channels,” YouTube isn’t a broadcaster. At least not in the eyes of the law. That neat little loophole is what allows it to operate without many of the rules the rest of us in TV have to follow. But I think we all know this.

If you’ve ever delivered a show to ITV, Sky or Netflix, you’ll know the routine. Before a single frame goes near transmission, the production team must assemble a stack of paperwork that could floor a donkey. Errors & Omissions insurance (E&O), compliance notes, rights clearances, risk assessments, proof that someone on set is trained in first aid. And that’s before you even get to the less obvious stuff: electrical certificates for the lights, health and safety checks for the location, contracts proving you own the rights to the archive you’ve cut in. Miss just one of these and the broadcaster will bounce the programme.

Why? Because if something goes wrong, if a lawsuit arrives, or someone gets hurt, or a rights holder challenges you, the broadcaster is ultimately responsible. So understandably, they insist you tick every box.

On YouTube however? You just hit upload. There’s no E&O or pre-clearance. And while platforms in some countries now face online safety duties, they still don’t carry the broadcaster-style liability that forces TV to insist on compliance paperwork.

Fool’s Gold

It’s obvious why making content this way is appealing: freedom from regulation and a massive saving in costs. Not only that, it’s even more obvious why younger people prefer to watch it over traditional TV. It’s edgier, more exciting. More dangerous.

But that difference in production procedure doesn’t just distort the economics. It encourages risky practice. On YouTube, no one asks for insurance certificates or safety paperwork, so many creators don’t bother. Why spend thousands on lawyers when you can just wing it? Why worry about duty of care when you’re a one-person band?

The incentives are skewed. The more dangerous the stunt, the more clicks. The more reckless the risk, the more likely you’ll get noticed. As TV professionals we’ve all watched this type of footage, sometimes through our fingers, knowing we could never make the same content for our channels.

And sadly, sometimes people pay the ultimate price for trying to get noticed.

Just last year, a 26-year-old British content creator died after falling from the Castilla-La Mancha bridge in Spain. The 630-foot structure was the backdrop for a stunt he was attempting to film for social media. He fell from around 40–50 metres while his girlfriend, who was with him, reportedly witnessed the tragedy. A TV production would never have allowed someone to scale a structure like that without harnesses, risk assessments and insurance. But on YouTube or TikTok, the incentives reward exactly this kind of spectacle.

If that had happened on a TV shoot, the consequences would have been seismic. Investigations. Lawsuits. Damaged reputations. Possibly criminal liability. The kind of reckoning that forces the entire industry to re-examine its processes. On YouTube, it was reported as a tragedy — but the wider system didn’t change.

The distribution danger

It isn’t just how content is made. It’s also what content is shown.

There’s no watershed and, unlike TV, platforms don’t operate under broadcast scheduling rules. In the UK, Ofcom’s Online Safety Act regime now applies to platforms, but it isn’t the same as the broadcaster obligations that keep pre-watershed violence off TV.

When US commentator Charlie Kirk was recently assassinated, mainstream coverage noted that graphic footage of the killing spread rapidly across platforms. Millions could find and share it including children. My own son showed me the horrific video before the event had even reached mainstream news.

Now imagine if a broadcaster did the same. If Channel 4 ran unedited footage of a killing before 9pm, Ofcom would be on them in hours. The fine could run into millions. Politicians would call it a disgrace.

That’s the double standard: broadcasters face sanction for lapses, while platforms continue to operate under a lighter framework.

The excuse doesn’t wash

Ask YouTube why it doesn’t apply the same level of regulation and you’ll hear the familiar refrain: “Billions of uploads. Impossible to manage.” It sounds convincing - until you look at music.

Their Content ID system fingerprints every song uploaded, matches it against a global database, and instantly decides whether to allow, block or monetise it on behalf of the copyright holder. Upload a Beyoncé track and within seconds the system knows who owns it and where the ad money should flow.

If they can do that for Universal’s back catalogue, they could do something similar for compliance. AI already has the capacity to scan video for dangerous stunts, violent imagery or defamatory material. It wouldn’t be perfect but neither is Content ID, and it still works at scale.

Imagine a traffic-light system that happens at upload:

• Green videos: passed by AI, automatically covered under YouTube’s own pooled E&O insurance.

• Amber videos: flagged for human review, with the producer required to submit paperwork.

• Red videos: blocked until compliant.

Complicated? Not really. The infrastructure already exists. It simply isn’t applied in this way.

Why it hasn’t happened

Of course, there’s a reason. If platforms were forced to apply the same compliance rules as broadcasters, the cost and burden would almost certainly be passed back on to the uploaders. Suddenly, instead of hitting “publish,” you’d be paying for lawyers, insurance, certificates. For most creators, that would be the end of the road.

Bad news for platforms, perhaps. But potentially good news for the TV industry. Because if that happened, we’d finally see some kind of regulatory parity. Traditional producers already know how to work in a compliance-heavy environment. We’ve been doing it for decades. If advertisers began to question how safe YouTube really is, really understand how much risk their brands are exposed to, some might reconsider TV as a safer place to be.

Wishful thinking? Probably. But levelling the playing field could be the fastest way to stabilise the industry.

The missing voices

And what about our own industry bodies? We are constantly being told that YouTube is where it’s at. My own company creates content for the platform amongst others, but I still do it the old school way - safely. However, do I feel supported by the big trade bodies? Do I think they truly understand the challenges?

PACT, Ofcom, DCMS - they’re still staring at linear TV decline, while the biggest “broadcaster” in the world carries on seemingly untouched. No meaningful digital compliance standards. No serious lobbying for regulation. No plan to close the loophole that lets YouTube enjoy broadcaster reach without broadcaster responsibility. It’s this that’s killing our industry.

Of course younger people prefer the “edgy” online videos compared to our industry’s safely made, compliant content. No wonder creators can more easily monetise if they’re allowed to make “TV” without the same regulatory burden.

That leaves independent producers in a bind. Try to make responsible content for YouTube and, depending on what you’re making, you’re priced out. Lawyers, insurance, paperwork are impossible to fund on advertising pennies alone. Meanwhile, riskier content thrives made by those who shirk those responsibilities. It’s no longer acceptable for the platforms to say that it’s “at the creator’s own risk” because, of course, most will gladly take those odds.

PACT for one needs to wake up. It’s no longer enough for it to fight linear battles for the industry. The frontier is digital. Unless producers demand a framework, the chaos will continue and more people will continue to get hurt.

So what do we do?

There are options, but they all require pressure from the bodies I’ve just mentioned.

• Industry standards. Voluntary compliance codes backed by PACT, tied to pooled insurance from the platforms. Sign up to the code — get an easier upload.

• Shared insurance. Platforms could extend pooled E&O cover to compliant creators, as they already do with music rights.

• Regulatory parity. If you’re distributing to millions, you’re a broadcaster in all but name. Governments need to be firm and step in here.

• Producer strategy. Don’t rely solely on ad revenue. It will never initially cover the cost of safe, compliant production. Hybrid models: subscription, sponsorship, and perhaps most importantly broadcast backflow, are the only realistic path.

The uncomfortable truth

So, is YouTube dangerous? In my view, yes, but not simply because of the videos it hosts - it’s dangerous to the longevity of our industry. The real danger lies in what’s missing: insurance, compliance, watershed, accountability.

The death of a young British content creator in Spain shows what can happen when creators are left without safety nets. He fell from the Castilla-La Mancha bridge while attempting to film a stunt - something no TV production would ever have allowed without risk assessments, insurance, and proper safety measures. The spread of violent assassination footage shows what happens when audiences see material no broadcaster would dare run pre-watershed.

But beyond individual tragedies, there’s a deeper risk: the more YouTube thrives on a lighter set of rules, the more it undermines the economics of professional TV.

And while YouTube continues to insist it’s just a platform, we all know the reality: it is the world’s most powerful broadcaster. The question is whether we producers, regulators, governments are prepared to treat it as such, and whether advertisers will keep underwriting the risks.

Because if we don’t, the next scandal won’t just be a tragedy for creators or audiences. It will also be another nail in the coffin for an industry that has spent decades proving it can make content safely, responsibly, and sustainably.