BBC Studios Digital Brands unveils new slate of digital originals

BBC Studios Digital Brands is expanding its original digital programming with a new slate designed to build highly engaged communities around audience passions.

The slate is led by new entertainment podcast The Girls Are Talking, alongside creator-led travel series Scran & Scramble: An American in Scotland, and includes two new Top Gear YouTube channels, Top Gear Tech and Top Gear Challenges, and newly launched family original The Rewinderz.

Commissioned by Digital Director for Content, Chris Allen, and Group Digital Director for Portfolio, Madi Woodstock, the slate reflects BBC Studios Digital Brands’ audience-first strategy of developing content specifically for the platforms where audiences discover, watch and engage with the things they love. It brings together globally recognised BBC Studios IP, original formats and creator-led storytelling across entertainment, automotive, technology, food & travel and family.

Jasmine Dawson, SVP Digital, BBC Studios, said: “Our starting point is always the audience. On digital platforms, people increasingly come together around the things they’re passionate about, and that gives us an opportunity to think differently about how we develop content. We can build new formats around those communities, bring creators with genuine credibility into established brands and create entirely new IP. For advertisers, those same communities are incredibly valuable. This slate gives brands more opportunities to align with premium content that audiences are actively choosing to watch and engage with, whether that’s entertainment, automotive and technology, travel or family.”

The Girls Are Talking

Leading the new slate is The Girls Are Talking, a new video podcast where no topic is off limits and no two opinions are the same, bringing the glossy, high-energy feel of daytime TV to a digital-first generation.

Bringing together pop royalty Keisha Buchanan, Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Kamille, content creator and author Tara Thorpe, radio presenter Issra Wiheba, and comedian Sharifa Butterfly, the show puts five distinct perspectives at the heart of candid and unfiltered conversations about life, fame, money, womanhood, dating, resilience and identity.

Smart, funny and authentic, the weekly 30 x 60-minute series will be launch on YouTube and be distributed across podcast platforms.

Launching in autumn 2026, The Girls Are Talking was developed by Shukri Dirie and Hannah Wesson, and is a BBC Studios Audio Production, produced by Leanne Alie.

Scran & Scramble: An American in Scotland

Scran & Scramble: An American in Scotland is a creator-led travel series for The Travel Edit channel, following American creator Kobie (@Kjordy) as he explores Scotland beyond the stereotypes alongside Scottish creator Bryan Millar Walker.

Launching this autumn, the five-part series blends humour, discovery and cinematic storytelling and takes audiences through some of Scotland’s most striking scenery and lesser-known destinations.

Developed by Chris Ambrose and produced by Aurora Media Worldwide, the 5 x 22-minute format combines creator personality with premium travel storytelling designed specifically for digital audiences.

Top Gear

BBC Studios Digital Brands is significantly expanding Top Gear’s digital proposition, building on the strength of one of the world’s best-known automotive media brands to reach new audiences around the overlapping passions of cars, technology and entertainment.

Launching in September, Top Gear Tech is a new YouTube channel dedicated to the fascinating and rapidly evolving world of technology. From EVs and robots to gadgets and emerging technologies, the channel will combine trusted reporting and reviews with stories about the innovations shaping how we live and move.

Hosted by presenter, journalist and content creator Jack Scarlett, Top Gear Tech will launch with fortnightly 20-minute features, supported by short-form content across the wider Top Gear digital ecosystem. The new proposition builds on Top Gear’s existing success covering technology on TopGear.com and Apple News+, while extending the brand beyond its core automotive audience to tech and STEM enthusiasts.

This will be followed in October by Top Gear Challenges, a new entertainment-led YouTube channel bringing Top Gear’s trademark ambition and automotive credibility to bigger stunts, challenges and creator collaborations.

Hosted by Top Gear Editor-in-Chief Jack Rix, the monthly 30–60-minute films will ask the kind of questions only Top Gear would attempt to answer – from whether a supercar can outrun a golf ball to whether you can drive a full-size LEGO car in the real world. Designed to create highly shareable, talked-about moments, the channel will take Top Gear beyond core motoring enthusiasts and into broader global entertainment audiences.

The new channels build on Top Gear’s successful always-on digital formats, including First Looks, which gives audiences early access to the newest and most talked-about cars through in-depth analysis, opinion and authoritative reviews, generating 19 million views and 1.5 million watch hours in 2025, and First Drives, which combines in-depth reviews, exclusive interviews and Top Gear’s distinctive take on the latest releases, delivering 21 million views and 1.8 million watch hours in 2025.

Together, the channels and formats demonstrate BBC Studios Digital Brands’ strategy of building out from established IP into distinct digital audience communities, creating more ways for fans to engage with their passions and more opportunities for advertisers to reach highly engaged automotive, technology and entertainment audiences.

The Rewinderz

The slate also includes newly launched The Rewinderz, an original music-led family format created specifically for YouTube and available on BBC Studios Digital Brands’ Bopple Junior channel.

Hosted by award-winning children’s educator MC Grammar, alongside dancer Starr Kiely and comedian Watson D. Hirschfield, the series follows a time-travelling crew on adventures through Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, the Ice Age, the Golden Age of Pirates and more.

Combining original pop music, dance, games and storytelling, the series is designed to encourage children aged 4–8 and their families to move, participate and learn together. The talent brings a combined social reach of more than nine million followers.

The series will also be supported by BBC Learning Hub in the U.S. to help extend the series into classrooms, after-school clubs and home learning environments.

The 10 x 4-minute series was developed by Hannah Wesson and John Knowles, and produced by Strawberry Blond, with CGI, VFX and Animation from The Berry.

The new slate forms part of BBC Studios Digital Brands’ wider strategy to build and grow audiences across a portfolio of owned, licensed and creator-led digital content.

With more than 150 channels spanning globally recognised IP including Bluey, Doctor Who, BBC Earth and Top Gear, alongside creator-led and original programming, BBC Studios Digital Brands reaches more than 350 million people globally each month across 17+ languages. In FY25/26, BBC Studios Digital Brands generated 2.1 billion hours of watch time on YouTube and 7 billion ad impressions across its YouTube offering.

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About BBC Studios
BBC Studios is the main commercial arm of BBC Commercial Ltd and generated revenues of £2.1 billion in the last year and profits of over £200 million for a fifth consecutive year. Able to take an idea seamlessly from thought to screen and beyond, the business is built on two operating areas: the content studio, which produces, invests and distributes TV and audio globally and media & streaming, with BBC branded channels, services including UKTV, BBC.com and BritBox and joint ventures in the UK and internationally. The business made almost 3,500 hours of award-winning British programmes last year for a wide range of UK and global broadcasters and platforms. Its content is internationally recognised across a broad range of genres and specialisms, and includes world-famous brands like Strictly Come Dancing/Dancing with the Stars, the Planet series, Bluey and Doctor Who.