The days of “church and state” separation of editorial and commercial in the broadcast and online video space are gone, according to a panel of video experts.

Speaking at yesterday’s Unbound Digital event in London, BBC Worldwide’s SVP digital Chris Whiteley said that the attitude that “commercial and editorial shall never meet” is being phased out.

“That is changing now. We want quality content which satisfied both audiences and brands,” said Whiteley.

Matt Heiman, founder and CEO of Diagonal View, a short-form content production house, agreed that the relationship between commercial and editorial is “not quite [divided like] church and state” any more.

However, said it was right for video platforms to take their time to understand their audience before engaging with brands for sponsored content: “We wanted to make major channels for an internet-based audience. If we then worked with brands, we would understand our audience and know what they want. The data capture is the most important part of a digital business.”

The panel, hosted by internet entrepreneur Oded Vardi, argued it was vital for digital media companies to have both quality content and a sizeable audience.

“It is definitely a revolution,” said Michal Feix, business development director at Czech video platform Seznam. “You need content and an audience – Netflix started with the audience, now it is building content, as that is needed in the industry. On the internet you don’t have to buy frequencies or licenses – this will be hard for TV to cross, they struggle to make such a radical change.”