Rebuilding TV in the creator era UK video consumption and creation

Ben Woods

April 2026

The UK video market is at the centre of a once-in-a-generation shift. While linear TV still delivers huge reach and revenue for broadcasters, social platforms and global streaming services have already won the battle for daily attention.

At the same time, nearly half of UK consumers now create content themselves, accelerating the rise of creators as a parallel entertainment ecosystem. As creation and consumption converge, the boundaries between audience, talent, and producer are breaking down.

Using the UK as a lens, this report examines how viewing, creating, and TV production are collapsing into a single interconnected system. This is not the dismantling of TV but its reconstruction, with the creator economy moving from the margins to the centre of how entertainment is made, distributed, and experienced.

This report combines consumption and creation data with engagement analysis to define how entertainment companies must adapt to compete in a converged video ecosystem.

Key data and insights:

Comparison of UK weekly active use across UK and US-based streaming services
Most popular creation formats among UK creators
Content creation penetration by country
Genre differences in produced social video content between professional and casual UK creators
UK video creator forecasts up to 2032

Data from:

MIDiA Research Video Creator Tools Model (08/24)
MIDiA Research Creator Tools Survey (05/25), fielded globally, n = 400

And the following MIDiA Research Consumer Surveys, which were all fielded in US, Canada, Australia, UK, Germany, France, Sweden, South Korea, and Brazil:

MIDiA Research Consumer Survey Q4 2021, n = 8,800
MIDiA Research Consumer Survey Q2 2022, n = 8,800
MIDiA Research Consumer Survey Q4 2022, n = 9,000
MIDiA Research Consumer Survey Q2 2023, n = 9,000
MIDiA Research Consumer Survey Q4 2023, n = 9,000
MIDiA Research Consumer Survey Q2 2024, n = 9,000
MIDiA Research Consumer Survey Q4 2024, n = 9,019
MIDiA Research Consumer Survey Q2 2025, n = 9,003
MIDiA Research Consumer Survey Q4 2025, n = 9,086

Additionally:

MIDiA Research Consumer Survey Q3 2025, US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Mexico, n = 7,021

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