The BRIT Awards 2019 with Mastercard announce record-breaking numbers for international digital audience

The BRIT Awards 2019 with Mastercard today announce that their viewing audience via the international YouTube Live Stream enjoyed a record-breaking uplift of 160 per cent from 2018 with 3.98 million views. The show broadcast on ITV in the UK from The O2 Arena, London, on 20th February, and was ITV's biggest 16-34 overnight audience of the year so far, with a 42 per cent share for 16-34s.

Overall The BRITs saw significant growth of 12 per cent in its overall follower numbers across all of its social accounts combined for @BRITs – up to 3.375 million from 3 million in 2018.

New YouTube live stream hosts Todrick Hall and Vick Hope presented the show to an international audience, of which the top five viewing countries were Mexico, US, France, Italy and Brazil, and continued to host the Official After-Party on YouTube after the main show finished. Last year 1.5 million viewers internationally tuned in to watch The BRITs 2018 live stream.

The BRITs 2019 was hosted by Jack Whitehall and featured exclusive live performances from Hugh Jackman, Calvin Harris with Dua Lipa, Sam Smith and Rag’n’Bone Man, P!nk, George Ezra, Jess Glynne with H.E.R., The 1975, Jorja Smith and Little Mix with Ms Banks. Performances and highlights are available on YouTube Music, the official music app of The BRIT Awards 2019. The total YouTube views across all performances are approx. 9 million.

The YouTube live stream followed a robust influencer programme to drive the BRITs 2019 social conversation, with a wealth of broadcast talent and personalities presenting this year’s BRIT Awards across all social platforms.

The BRITs 2019 coverage kicked off with the Facebook Red Carpet live stream presented by Jamie Laing and Yasmin Evans. The two hour Red Carpet broadcast received 5.9 million views in the first five days – an overall reach of 34.5 million, up 14 per cent on 2018.

Montana Brown and Mark Ferris took over the BRITs Instagram, updating live from the red carpet on this and their own channels as BRITs Insiders, with the total views on the BRITs Instagram story achieving 46 per cent increase year on year.

The BRITs was the biggest show on Twitter last week by far, with nearly 750k total tweets sent about the show (224% increase y-o-y), 196 million impressions (66% increase) and 2.6 million likes compared to 863.4k in 2018. The BRIT Awards Twitter video views totalled 5.2 million.

Giphy produced hundreds of gifs live throughout the whole show - these gifs alongside a suite of stickers available for use in Instagram stories, reached total views of an incredible 96.2 million. Furthermore, partner activity with Snapchat, Jungle Creations and TikTok ensured The BRITs was talked about across every major social platform on the day.

The BRIT Awards 2019 digital campaign was led by BPI Director of Digital Giuseppe De Cristofano, Sony Music UK - 4th Floor Creative’s VP of Digital Dorothy Hui, Chair of the BRITs Digital Committee, and Nan Davies, Exec Producer and Zosia Morris, Senior Producer, at content agency Somethin’ Else.

Dorothy Hui, Sony Music UK - 4th Floor Creative’s VP of Digital shared, “I’m thrilled to see a boost in online audience for The BRITs 2019. We’re grateful for the massive on- and off-platform support from YouTube Music to help us achieve this. With the incredible continued support from our social partners over the years, the BRITs have continued to build stronger connections with fans around and beyond the show, enabling the dialogue around British music to continue year-round.”

Giuseppe De Cristofano, BPI Director of Digital, said: “It’s great to see all our strategic planning and hard work rewarded with such a large increase in the BRITs online audience - a positive trend we hope will continue to build strongly in line with our commitment to constantly evolve the show so that it always serves the fans that watch it.
“I would like to thank all our partners, not least YouTube Music for their campaign integration and support and for their fantastic promotional activity around the BRITs which really helped us to move the needle. We will continue to strive to promote British music around the world and to bring fans ever closer to the artists they love.”