Gladiators (2024 British TV series)

Gladiators is a British television series which began airing on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on 13 January 2024. It is the second revival of the original 1992 Gladiators series on ITV, after the 2008 series on Sky One. The series is produced by Hungry Bear Media and MGM Alternative UK.

The series is presented by Bradley Walsh and his son, Barney. Each episode consists of four players, known as 'contenders' – two male and two female – competing in a series of physically challenging events against the show's resident 'Gladiators', a group of elite athletes – such as bodybuilders or track and field athletes – and eventually competing in one contenders-only final event, the Eliminator. The series has introduced a total of 18 new Gladiators. The series consists of the heats, the quarter-finals, the semi-finals and a grand final, to determine the overall champions. It is refereed by Mark Clattenburg, assisted by Sonia Mkoloma and Lee Phillips, with voice-over commentary provided by Guy Mowbray.

Upon its release, the revived series of Gladiators became one of the most successful family entertainment launches for the BBC in seven years, attracting more than six million viewers during its premiere episode, and scoring nearly nine million during the whole first series. The BBC subsequently commissioned Gladiators: Epic Pranks, a spin-off children's prank series for CBBC. The fifteen-episode series, filmed behind the scenes of the main programme, and hosted by Gladiator Nitro (Harry Aikines-Aryeetey), started airing in February 2025. During the broadcast of the shows second series, BBC again renewed the show for a third series, with filming expected to take place in summer 2025 with a broadcast in January 2026.

Alongside the commisioning of a second series, which began airing in January 2025, A "one-off" Celebrity Special, which was filmed alongside the second series, was aired on New Year's Day 2025 on BBC One; the episode featured Rob Beckett, Joel Dommett, Ellie Taylor and Louise Minchin as the contenders taking on the Gladiators.

In April 2025, it was announced that Gladiators was to embark on a new live arena tour across the cities of the UK, including Liverpool, Manchester, London and Glasgow, in November and December 2025. During the tour, the super fans of the programme can meet the Gladiators live, and witness live action on the arena floor, as the Gladiators face some of the contenders from the two first series of the reboot.