Disney+ will carry Channel 4’s main TV channel, a catalogue of its programmes and a run of new Channel 4 series on the day they air, for UK and Irish subscribers from early 2027, The Walt Disney Company and the British public service broadcaster said in a joint statement released late on Monday 26 October, UK time. Disney called it one of the most significant deals Disney+ has struck globally.
Key facts
- Channel 4’s main linear channel, in HD, and its on-demand programmes will sit inside Disney+ for UK and Irish viewers from early 2027
- Several new Channel 4 series a year will arrive on Disney+ day-and-date, including Maya, Stepping Up and Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins
- The catalogue includes Big Mood, Tip Toe and 24 Hours in A&E, in a Channel 4-branded section of the app
- No extra charge for Disney+ subscribers; financial terms were not disclosed
- Launch dates and the full line-up will follow, the companies said
For a free-to-air broadcaster, this is distribution rather than a programme sale: Channel 4 keeps its shows on its own services and adds a shop window inside a paid platform. Disney gets a live UK channel and new British series it did not commission.
What Disney+ subscribers get
The joint statement promises hundreds of hours of scripted and unscripted programmes. The new titles named so far are Maya, a six-part thriller written by Daisy Haggard about a mother and her teenage daughter forced into witness protection; Stepping Up, a comedy with Denise Welch; and Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins. Haggard plays the mother, Anna, and Bella Ramsey also stars. Two Brothers Pictures (Fleabag) produces the series, according to Channel 4’s commissioning announcement.
The library side names Russell T Davies’ Tip Toe, Nicola Coughlan’s comedy Big Mood and the long-running documentary series 24 Hours in A&E. The channel itself will stream in full on Disney+, which Deadline calls a UK first.
Karl Holmes, general manager of Disney+ for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told Deadline there would be a “regular tempo” of new Channel 4 shows but declined to give a number. He said 16- to 34-year-olds accounted for about 40% of Disney+ viewing over the past year. TheWrap reports that Channel 4 reached 45 million adults in the first half of 2026.
Who said what
Channel 4 chief executive Priya Dogra said in the statement that the service would help the broadcaster’s shows “reach viewers in new places”. Adam Smith, who chairs direct-to-consumer at Disney Entertainment, called local broadcaster partnerships “very important” as Disney builds its content libraries.
Dogra has been in the job for less than a year. Deadline sets the deal beside her earlier advertising agreement with 5, the UK network owned by Skydance. Channel 4’s streaming service already licenses Disney series including Abbott Elementary, The X-Files and Scandal.
Disney’s run of broadcaster deals
Disney+ began this strategy in the UK in July 2025, when Disney and ITV agreed to carry a rotating selection of each other’s shows, such as Mr Bates vs The Post Office and The Bear. Holmes told Deadline the Channel 4 agreement is broader than the ITV one. Disney also has similar partnerships with RAI in Italy, ARD and ZDF in Germany, RTVE and Atresmedia in Spain, SIC in Portugal and France’s M6 Group, according to The Hollywood Reporter and TheWrap. Netflix took the same route in France with TF1.
Not disclosed: the fee or revenue share, the length of the agreement, the number of new series a year and the launch date, which the companies say will follow with the full line-up.
Our reading
Broadcasters used to sell finished shows to streamers and step away. Here Channel 4 places its whole channel, brand intact, inside Disney+, a model closer to pay-TV carriage than to licensing. For British producers, a Channel 4 commission can now reach a paying streaming audience on the day of broadcast, which narrows what is left to sell to other streamers in those two markets. The bet is on habit: Channel 4 goes where viewers already are, the opposite of Universal’s effort to rebuild the cinema habit, and a television version of the question in our analysis of who is actually taking films to audiences.
The next things to watch are the launch date and the first full list of day-and-date titles, then Channel 4’s own viewing figures: whether Disney+ adds younger viewers without drawing them away from its own streaming service.
Sources
- The Walt Disney Company and Channel 4 joint statement (quoted by The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and TheWrap; not yet posted on either company’s press site at 01:30 CET)
- Variety
- Deadline
- TheWrap
- Channel 4 press release on the Maya commission
- The Walt Disney Company EMEA, Disney and ITV agreement (10 July 2025)