Future of TV TikTok Social Media

Channel 4 partners with TikTok to ‘super serve’ young audiences

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By John Glenday, Reporter

March 17, 2021 | 3 min read

Channel 4 has dipped its toes into the short-form video world of TikTok with dedicated @channel4 and @E4 accounts.

Channel 4

Channel 4 has launched on TikTok with two dedicated accounts

The partnership builds on the newly minted ‘Future4’ digital strategy and will usher in a commercial relationship with Channel 4 trialing the use of branded content with TikTok’s blessing.

Channel 4 lands on TikTok

  • Channel 4 will hit TikTok with a bang, unleashing its most popular stars and shows with a run of exclusive content drawn from Hollyoaks, Made in Chelsea and Pete & Sam’s Reality News.

  • Hitting the ground running the network will also use its newly minted TikTok accounts to showcase selected clips from perennial favorites such as Gogglebox, Taskmaster and First Dates.

  • Channel 4 has also committed itself to producing original content under the ’#LearnTikTok’ banner to encourage self-development, helping TikTok achieve some of its own goals.

  • In all Channel4 will publish over 150 videos within six months, all of which will be produced by 4Studio, its Leeds-based digital unit.

Feeding into the ‘Future4’ strategy

  • The marriage feeds into Channel 4’s digital-first ‘Future4’ strategy to embrace high-growth channels. Launched at the end of last year the five-year plan will see the channel prioritize streaming and social media to access new revenues.

  • In such a way Channel hopes to achieve commercial self-sufficiency by forging new strategic partnerships that fall outside its traditional domain of broadcast TV.

  • Head of 4Studio Matt Risley said: “Reaching and engaging young audiences is an integral part of our Future4 strategy and creating and commissioning content purely for TikTok will be a hugely valuable opportunity for us to do just that.

  • “We know there’s already a huge appetite for our programming on the platform, so launching Channel 4 and E4 channels is a great opportunity to super-serve audiences.”

  • Channel 4’s TikTok embrace coincides with an explosion in worldwide popularity for the Chinese app, which has now been downloaded an incredible 2 billion times.

  • The onset of the pandemic has radically altered the rules f engagement for established broadcasters who have looked on as audiences eagerly embrace new media.

  • In the UK TikTok now boasts 17m regular users with the number of monthly users in the US exceeding 100m.

Future of TV TikTok Social Media

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Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster that began transmission on 2 November 1982. 

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