A closer look at the UK’s Top 20 Media Brands

Casting the eye over those brands in the top 20 which have experienced lifts in Brand Love, the theme of ‘personalisation’ seems to come through strongly.

Shaun Austin Head of Agencies & Media 30/06/2023

Looking at our Top 20 we can see that Netflix is No.1 for the second year running, however the gap between the streaming giant and its fellow top 10 competitors is beginning to close…

This year Netflix has seen Brand Love drop 2 percentage points while YouTube and WhatsApp have both seen increases of this amount – narrowing last year’s gap of 9 percentage points to just 5.

As a result of these increases for both YouTube and WhatsApp, Google has dropped down the ranking 2 places, despite Brand Love remaining quite stable.

Interestingly, streaming services make up four of our top 10 brands, with Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video joining Netflix and YouTube. Meanwhile Sky TV is the only mainstream broadcaster within the top 10, with BBC iPlayer hot on its heels at number 11, ahead of ITV and BBC, ITVX and All4.

This is perhaps unsurprising giving recent findings from BrandVue Media; when we asked whether people were consuming more or less of a given type of media in the last month, social media along with streaming came out on top.

	Consumed less in last month	Consumed more in last month	NET more minus less
Social Media Platforms	21%	29%	8%
Streaming Platforms	22%	29%	6%
Radio	26%	22%	-4%
Digital Newspapers, Magazines or Portals	24%	13%	-10%
TV	33%	20%	-13%
Print Magazines	25%	10%	-16%
Print Newspapers	29%	10%	-19%
Cinema	35%	15%	-21%

For each of the main freely available TV Broadcasters, their streaming brand is more loved than the main brand, with the exception of ITV, that is slightly higher in our league table than ITVX – the recently re-branded streaming platform.

BBC	Rank	ITV	Rank	Channel 4	Rank
BBC iPlayer	11	ITV	12	All4	20
BBC	14	ITVX	16	Channel 4	23

While Channel 4 has been used as a bit of a political football this year, with all the talk about privatisation, the brand will be heartened to see that its Brand Love is on the up, climbing 3 places from last year.

Casting the eye over those brands in the top 20 which have experienced lifts in Brand Love, the theme of ‘personalisation’ seems to come through strongly.

2023 Ranking	Brand	YoY change in Brand Love (1%+)
2	YouTube	+2%
3	WhatsApp	+2%
5	Spotify	+1%
8	Instagram	+1%
9	TikTok	+1%
13	Snapchat	+1%
18	Pinterest	+1%
19	Apple Music	+1%

Each of these brands offer a high degree of personalisation, whether it’s providing a platform for you to communicate with friends and family on a daily basis, where you watch your favourite shows or listen to your favourite artists, or creating a space where you can project yourself to others, it’s all dictated to by the individual consumer, rather than curated by an organisation.

Perhaps there is a lesson there for the traditional media companies, whether that be TV, radio, newspapers or magazines – how are you giving individuals more choice in what they are consuming?

Traditional media has been put under severe pressure by the internet, disrupting business models, and now as the internet evolves further into Web3.0, the themes of community and creativity are going to be even more important and will give brands opportunities to interact and connect with their audiences in new and different ways. For example, Disney recently partnered with the NHL to broadcast its first-ever game in 3D animation, looking to engage younger audiences.

The more brands that think differently and outside of the box, leveraging elements of community, personalisation and creativity, the more chance they will have of being successful in this ever-evolving landscape.

To find out more about Brand Love and what it means for the media industry, download the report below, which includes the full list of the Top 100 Most Loved Media Brands in the UK.