The BRIT Awards 2026 with Mastercard has highlighted its biggest uplift yet across its social channels.
This year’s ceremony at Co-op Live in Manchester marked its first time outside the capital.
The show was broadcast on ITV1 and ITVX in the UK and, for the first time, on ITV’s YouTube channel, as well as on the BRITs’ YouTube channel for international audiences.
Olivia Dean was the big winner with four awards, alongside Sam Fender (two awards), Wolf Alice, Lola Young, Dave, Fred again..,Skepta & PlaqueBoyMax, Rosé & Bruno Mars, Rosalía and Sault.
There were performances from Olivia Dean, Harry Styles, Raye, Wolf Alice, Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami – the singing voices of Huntr/x, Alex Warren, Rosalía and Sombr, as well as surprise appearances from Dua Lipa and Ghostface Killah with Mark Ronson. Robbie Williams performed with Ozzy Osbourne’s band.
The streaming and sales impact has seen significant consumption increases for Rosalía’s album Lux (up 583% as it targets a Top 20 return), Geese’s Getting Killed (up 177% with a Top 40 return) and Sam Fender’s People Watching (up 25% also in the Top 40). Olivia Dean continues to perform strongly with The Art Of Loving up more than 15% in terms of consumption.
Rein Me In, the BRIT-winning Song Of The Year from Sam Fender and Olivia Dean, has seen an uplift of 18%.
Social media content on the BRITs owned channels broke records, with video content from the 48 hours post-show amassing in excess of over 250 million organic views, an increase of 275% on last year.
Instagram led the way with 162m views, up 400% from 32.4m views in the same period last year. Followers of BRITs’ Instagram had access to exclusive content and photos of winners. The account, which doubled the number of posts when compared to the same period in 2025 to over 220, saw over 10 million likes across the 48 hours following the event, as well as almost one million content shares.
FACEBOOK REELS
Views of Facebook Reels topped 70 million for the first time, with highlights including clips from the tribute to the late Ozzy Osbourne, Olivia Dean’s acceptance speech for Mastercard Album Of The Year, and Dua Lipa’s surprise appearance during Mark Ronson’s medley of hits.
YOUTUBE
YouTube broadcast the show to non-UK viewers for the 13th consecutive year, with views doubling compared to 2025, with over one million tuning in from overseas. There were more than four million views of content on The BRITs’ YouTube channel, up from 1.3m views on 2025, with all 10 performances from the ceremony amassing a total of 10m views, including over two million for Harry Styles’ debut live performance of Aperture, and four million for Rosalía’s rendition of Berghain, featuring Björk.
TIKTOK
Video views on TikTok also increased, more than doubling from 9.3m in the 48 hours following the show in 2025, to over 19m in 2026.
ITVX
While the overnight broadcast ratings were down – at 2.1m – that didn’t present the whole picture as it did not include onlin views via ITVX.
ITVX’s BRITs coverage saw growth with more than two million total streams to date, achieving an over 60% increase year on year. Full consolidation audience figures are still to come, inclusive of ITV1, ITVX and YouTube.
“ITV1 was the biggest channel in the slot across all key demographics, reinforcing the BRITs’ position as a tentpole live event,” said a statement.
The 2026 show performed well with younger viewers with nearly half of the 16–34 demographic watching TV during the timeslot tuning in to the BRITs. This 49% share meant the BRITs achieved the highest peak share for any commercial programme in the 2026 calendar so far.
We continue to see our strategy to make the BRITs global pay off as we bring the BRITs conversation to new young audiences around the world
Giuseppe De Cristofano
The BRIT Awards 2026 was led by chair of the BRITs Committee, Stacey Tang, co-president of RCA Records, Sony Music UK. The digital campaign was led by Edd Blower, director, audience strategy & growth, RCA UK, and BPI director of digital, Giuseppe De Cristofano, who jointly co-chaired The BRIT Awards 2026 Digital Committee, working with content agency Cold Glass Productions.
Dr Jo Twist OBE, CEO of the BPI, which puts on The BRIT Awards every year, said: “This year’s BRIT Awards 2026 with Mastercard were as groundbreaking as they were epic, and the show’s off-the-scale impact and reach has made it an even more powerful global stage for British artists and international talent. The first time outside of London, and embraced by Manchester in the most heart-felt way, including through a first-ever BRITs Fringe, we’re seeing record levels of digital engagement and media reporting, increased ratings, and a marked uplift in the sales and streams of the amazing music that we were privileged to celebrate on Saturday night.
“Many congratulations to all our diverse winners and nominees, and with profound thanks to The BRITs Committee chaired by Stacey Tang, The BRITs Team, Jack Whitehall, and everyone who worked to create such a spectacular event. We’re grateful also to our amazing hosts Manchester and Co-op Live, and to our valued partners Mastercard, ITV, Meta, Neutrogena and others for helping to make this one of the best-ever BRITs!”
Giuseppe De Cristofano, BPI director of digital and co-chair of the BRIT Awards Digital Committee, said: “The move to Manchester has added a fresh lens to our campaign, the way the city has embraced the BRITs is unparallelled and has allowed us to capture new stories around the BRITs and share these with music fans all over the world. I am thrilled with the huge increase in engagement we’ve seen across our social output particularly with the increase in organic views across our Instagram content. The build-up to the show was like no other culminating in incredible output from our social first red carpet to the Show itself. We continue to see our strategy to make the BRITs global pay off as we bring the BRITs conversation to new young audiences around the world.
“This is all helped by fantastic partners, a huge thank you to Josh Nicoll and the team at Meta, for their continued support across Instagram, along with the team at WhatsApp for powering the public vote for Song of the Year and International Song of the Year. I’d also like to thank the teams at ITV and YouTube for their support in making the YouTube live stream truly global for the very first time. A big thanks to Edd Blower at RCA Records, my co-chair of the BRITs Digital Committee for his strategic vision, insight, passion and leadership throughout this campaign and to Toby Leveson here at BPI and the entire team at Cold Glass Productions for their dedication, passion and creativity in delivering another successful campaign.”
This year felt like a genuine turning point for The BRIT Awards, and the digital campaign reflected that
Edd Blower
Edd Blower, director of audience strategy & growth, RCA Records and co-chair of the BRIT Awards Digital Committee, said: "This year felt like a genuine turning point for The BRIT Awards, and the digital campaign reflected that. The move to Manchester, the first global multi-platform livestream with YouTube crossing one million views ex-uk, organic Instagram Reels views increasing five-fold year on year. These are signs that The BRITs is finding new audiences and asserting itself as a truly global stage for British music. The move for public vote to Song Of The Year and International Song Of The Year, delivered in partnership with Meta & Whatsapp, further reflected that global ambition and opened the conversation to new audiences and brought more of the world into The BRIT Awards.
“The fact that the teams at BPI and Cold Glass Productions achieved all of this while navigating a new venue speaks volumes, as they rose to every challenge with real creativity and commitment.”
He added: “Growing up, I never missed a moment to watch live music on TV (and to study the drummers) so to be part of a team delivering The BRITs to millions of people worldwide is something I won't take for granted. Thank you to the members of this year's digital committee, a massive thank you to my co-chair Giuseppe De Cristofano for his drive and steady hand throughout, and finally to Stacey Tang for asking me to join her team."
Josh Nicoll, music label partnerships manager at Meta, said: “Huge congratulations to Jo, Giuseppe, Edd and everyone across the BRITs team and committee on an outstanding BRIT Awards 2026 with Mastercard – early results are already showing impressive numbers and record levels of engagement.
“We’re proud of the role Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook played in helping the BRITs be the UK’s defining cultural moment in music – connecting fans to the build-up, the red carpet, and the performances in real time. With an incredible line-up of artists on the live show and the reach of the wider digital programme, the BRITs have travelled further than ever, resonating with audiences around the world. And it’s been especially exciting to see fans get directly involved through the WhatsApp public vote for Song Of The Year and International Song Of The Year – a brilliant example of how community and participation can elevate the show and help bring new audiences into the conversation.”
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