ITV, Sky, and C4 join Comcast to woo SMEs to TV ads

Small and medium-sized businesses are being offered the chance to create, buy, and measure premium TV ad campaigns across three major UK broadcasters’ sales houses – ITV Media, Sky Media and Channel 4 Sales – from a single interface, simplifying the buying process, improving efficiency and enhancing accessibility for new-to-TV advertisers.

The move follows the launch of Comcast’s self-service advertising platform for the premium TV industry, dubbed Universal Ads, first unveiled at Cannes Lions 2025.

The platform enables advertisers to go live in minutes through a few easy steps: select a budget, target the ideal customer, upload creative and launch.

Designed to feel as familiar as buying on social, while delivering the brand safety and proven effectiveness of broadcaster-quality TV, it is claimed to combine ease of use with the mass reach, cost-efficient impact and long-term brand building of TV, creating a platform built for the next generation of advertisers.

Available to advertisers in the US for over a year, Comcast maintains the platform has shown “compelling results”, demonstrating how broadcasters can work collectively to modernise how advertisers access TV while protecting the quality and effectiveness that define it.

The platform is designed for growth-focused brands, whether digital-native, direct to consumer, or scaling beyond social, that have historically found TV out of reach, but it retains the performance depth and targeting sophistication that larger advertisers and agencies expect.

This launch follows a year of close collaboration between Sky, Channel 4, ITV, and Comcast’s product, operations and commercial teams, during which Universal Ads and the broadcast partners tested, refined and enhanced the offering to create a market-ready solution built for the evolving needs of UK advertisers.

Universal Ads head of global expansion David Shaw said: “Together with Channel 4, ITV and Sky, we’ve built a platform that changes how TV advertising works in the UK today, bringing an experience that feels as simple as social, while preserving everything that makes broadcaster TV trusted, effective and impactful.”

Sky Media managing director Karen Eccles added: “Through Universal Ads, we are breaking down traditional barriers and making it easier than ever for a whole new wave of brands to harness the power of TV. This partnership is an opportunity to show that the quality and impact of broadcast TV is now truly accessible to everyone.”