Google's AI overview bets heavily on the original long form video, which is difficult to move, as it threatens to reduce publisher search traffic. According to the publisher, the publisher's digital revenue share has almost doubled over the past nine months, up from 9% in January to 18% today.
That decent chunk of surge comes directly from its original slate. The bid to turn the long-form digital video format of the Sun into a signature franchise is for viewers to continue expanding globally, and later.
So far, 15 shows have begun in January and seven new shows will begin over the next eight weeks. According to Sun's Director of Video Jon Lloyd, around 50 people are working on the original content and are set to raise personnel. In total, he said the show has generated over 113 million views across the platform, including YouTube, over the past eight months.
Of the 18% growth in video growth, 5% is original content, according to Owen Griffiths, Sun's Director of Commercial Revenues. Sun's Parent News Corp does not break title-specific advertising revenue, but Sun's total revenue in 2024 was £296.3 million ($444 million).
“We have begun to attract new clients who have never used us with digital capacity before [for Originals integrated sponsorships]like M&S and card factories, Griffith said. “This is a significant growth from a future standpoint and refers to where we go in the future,” he said.
Find the right flexible format
If the final pivot to video (circa 2016-2018) is about tracking the platform's algorithms, this latest wave is about building a sponsored, integrated, editorially rooted format that can rise across the platform despite AI and search rotation traffic flowing.
The publisher focuses on two specific content industries for original commissioning: sports and amazing – its women's fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands. According to Lloyd, news brands are restructuring other social channels like YouTube and Tiktok to meet the growing demand for deeper advertisers integration into brand-safe content.
“There are three things [Originals shows] It must be a hit: it must become an editorial spot for our viewers, and [help] Build a large, loyal community. Brand is safe and has commercial viability. And it has to be built for integration – that bit is important now,” Lloyd said.
Format franchises are built in a flexible and modular way to make brands easier to integrate into covered conversations and topics.
Six sponsors helped monetize six of the 15 original shows produced so far. This includes the weekly video podcast “No Parental Guidance,” sponsored by a card factory, attracting 7 million viewers.
The show is hosted by mom influencers Louise Boyce and Hannah East. He shares some of the unvarrogant truths about parenting with something outspoken and humorous. Guest stars like television presenter Davina McCall, who will be featured in next week's episode, often with fan feedback and commentary determining the topic of the next show.
A great brand taps external talent and influencers for around 75% of its content, but in sports, it's 70% internal staff, Lloyd added.
From Sports Slate: “From Sportdesk” is a set of women's rugby specials supported by lottery operators across the country, and “The Decision of Gloves Lost & Split” is a boxing analytics franchise currently sponsored by sports entertainment platform Dazn.
The goal is to be able to use the topic expertise of our editorial team to build and commercialize a passionate community around these shows.
“It's no point in the sun to make videos in isolation,” Lloyd said. Over 90% of the 250 daily production videos, including the original, have attached articles with the video incorporating it, he said. “Then there are 155 channels on nine platforms, and it spreads there. This is all going back to hero products, which are video, but journalism is also supporting it,” Lloyd said. The Sun claims a total of 45 million subscribers across a total of 190 channels.
Laura Smith, digital director at Essencemediacom, makes for an attractive product considering that when viewers have advertiser clients with Sun's audiences, brand integration offers a “deep and more contextual connection” with viewers than adjacent pre-rolls or midrolls. “In a market where the majority of brand integration costs through broadcast suppliers or UGC/influencers, this stands out as a unique way to promote clients' products and services through established and trustworthy brands,” she said.
Sun is the largest UK newspaper on YouTube with 6 million subscribers, according to Enders Analysis's YouTube and Journalism: The News Frontier Report. This is supported by two factors. FirstMover Advantage (Sun's main channel was established in 2007, with email in 2012, or Guardian in late 2014). And its upload frequency – the Sun, posted 12 times a day during the period when Ender reviewed publishers, focuses primarily on Ukraine, British polyit, crime footage, and wars in the British royal family. The original marks a coordinated push to spread across other genres for the video, said Abi Watson, senior research analyst at Enders.
“When search visibility decreases, social video becomes a more important touchpoint,” Watson said. “In June, about a third of the keywords Sun ranked in the Sistrix dataset caused a Google AI overview, which could have risen,” she said.
Northstar in an AI-driven era: Growth of CTV and video and deeper reader engagement
Sun Originals' early commercial traction arrives at a moment when publishers' search referrals are weakened under Google's AI overview and rival AI engines. As a result of the first quarter 2025 results, News UK parents shared that Sun's digital products will decline by 40% in September 2024 from 134 million in the previous year to 40% year-on-year. It did not cite any direct causes.
Results: Publishers are more proactive in prioritizing their owned and operated ecosystems and increasing their readership. “In general, from how Google and Meta to the advent of AI search, when you think about the downgrades that everyone sees in referral traffic, it's important to have a unique ecosystem of how people discover content,” added Griffiths. That means leaning on innovation, especially in your own app environment, he added.
However, scale remains important for advertisers for the time being, reaching a key part of their content and revenue strategy across YouTube and other social viewing platforms.
The publisher will launch five new YouTube channels in the coming months, splitting different sports into separate channels, including US sports and specific Premier League Football Club channels. It will also launch additional channels under the Family and Parenting category.
The Sun claims that 40% of the original's overall view came through connected television. This is equivalent to 600,000 hours of 1.4 million hours of original content, according to the publisher.
In contrast to open web displays, video and CTV ad spending has emerged as a bright spot for publishers. In the UK, 64% of online display spending, starting from 51% five years ago, was sent to video, according to IAB's digital ad spending report in April. The forecast suggests that CTV ads could reach £2.94 billion ($4 billion) by 2028 based on current rates per IAB data. In the US, CTV video spending rose 18% year-on-year to $64 billion in 2024, following the IAB's 2025 Digital Video Advertising and Strategy Report.
“If you want to see our ultimate ambitions, it's about moving further into the CTV space and potentially having our own existence,” Griffith said.
