Apply for the Small Indie Fund, Digital

Our Small Indie Fund ringfences £1million a year to support talented small independent production companies with turnovers of less than £10million. In 2025/26 the fund has a dual focus on digital and TV production.

The Small Indie Fund, Digital aims to grow digital expertise, offering targeted investment and mentors across TV and digital commissioning teams. This may result in the companies producing a short pilot.

Find out more about the Small Indie Fund, TV scheme.

What you’ll receive on the Small Indie Fund, Digital

Companies on the scheme will receive:

• Mentors from both our TV commissioning and digital teams
• Company investment
• Companies may also receive funding for a short non-broadcast pilot for a BBC channel

The creative brief will be agreed with the production company after selection, but could explore the following areas:

1. Contribute to the development of the BBC’s digital presence across platforms such as TikTok, YouTube as well as BBC platforms.
2. Enhance the digital offer of existing content partnerships and/or BBC moments.
3. Buddy up with an existing production to extend its presence into digital, such as promotional support or one-off digital films.

Who can apply 

The Digital Small Indie Fund is open to TV companies or digital production studios with:

• Annual turnovers of less than £10m
• Experience of producing digital media content, such as visualised podcasts, short-form video, livestreams or creator-driven content

We welcome experience across a broad variety of scripted or unscripted genres and sub-genres including entertainment, popular factual, comedy, unscripted comedy, drama, animation and factual.

The fund has a focus on diverse-led companies and those based in the Nations and English regions.

How to apply

The deadline for applications is 22 December.

As part of the application process, companies are asked to select a commissioning genre they wish to work with – factual, entertainment, daytime, comedy, drama or Children’s.

Companies can apply to both the TV and Digital funds if can they articulate clear development plans in both areas but will only be placed on one of the funds.

Email us for further information about the fund.

Terms

50% of the total investment received by each company will consist of company development. Companies will agree how the investment is used with their mentors after selection, with the company development investment payable at that point. Download the terms and conditions (pdf) for this investment.

The remaining 50% may be used for further company development on these terms or for the production of a short pilot, developed with mentors. Pilot content will be covered by our Digital Rights Framework 1.

Our production development funds

The Small Indie Fund, Digital is part of our commitment to supporting the creative industries in all four nations and delivering the most distinctive content for audiences. Companies can also apply for the Small Indie Fund, TV and the Radio and Music Indie Development Fund. Find out more on the links below.