BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned
commercialWhile business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...
subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m on a turnover of £1,004m in the previous financial year. In the year to 31 March 2011 BBC Worldwide's headline profits were up 10.3% to £160.2m - its highest level ever. The growth helped lift the overall return to the BBC by nearly 9% to £182m.
Operations
Worldwide is responsible for a wide range of commercial activities, primarily connected in some way with the output and public purposes of the main BBC. The company's work includes investment in
televisionTelevision is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
production. BBC Worldwide will often provide additional budget for BBC productions in return for various commercial rights to the programmes, and has also done so for non-BBC programmes as well, such as the
Red Production CompanyRed Production Company is a British independent television production company, formed in 1998 by Nicola Shindler, an experienced television producer who had worked on such prestige dramas as Our Friends in the North and Cracker...
drama
Mine All Mine for the BBC's rival
ITVITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
network in 2004. In 2006, a Content & Production business was formed to produce local versions of BBC formats overseas (maximising revenues by receiving a production fee from the local broadcaster as well as a sum from selling the initial re-versioning rights). BBC Worldwide has also, since, taken a 25% stake in Left Bank Pictures, a newly-formed independent film & TV production company, owned and run by former ITV Productions controller of comedy and drama
Andy HarriesAndrew D. M. Harries is a British television and film producer. After graduating from Hull University in the 1970s, Harries began his television career on the Granada Television current affairs series World in Action, before moving on to freelance work...
, and a 25% stake in Cliffhanger Productions – an independent production company that focuses on returning drama for UK networks.
Other major areas of business include international programming sales and distribution, foreign and domestic
satelliteSatellite television is television programming delivered by the means of communications satellite and received by an outdoor antenna, usually a parabolic mirror generally referred to as a satellite dish, and as far as household usage is concerned, a satellite receiver either in the form of an...
and
cable televisionCable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
channels (such as
UKTVUKTV is a digital cable and satellite television network, formed through a joint venture between BBC Worldwide, a commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and Scripps Networks Interactive, spun off from The E.W Scripps Company in 2008...
in the UK,
BBC AmericaBBC America is an American television network, owned and operated by BBC Worldwide, and available on both cable and satellite.-History:The channel launched on March 29, 1998, broadcasting comedy, drama and lifestyle programs from BBC Television and other British television broadcasters like ITV and...
in the United States and
BBC EntertainmentBBC Entertainment is an international television channel showcasing comedy, drama, light entertainment and children's programming from the BBC and other UK production houses...
in India) which is now the company's largest generator of revenue and growth, book publishing (through Random House), magazine publishing (most famously the
Radio TimesRadio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
),
VHSThe Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and
DVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
releases (through 2 entertain), spoken word and music audio products,
CD-ROMA CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
s,
videogamesVideoGames may refer to:*VideoGames, a mid-1990s magazine about video games.*Video games in general....
, library footage sales via the
BBC Motion GalleryBBC Motion Gallery is the footage licensing division of BBC Worldwide, offering media professionals in advertising, commercials, television, film, interactive and corporate video production access to over a million hours of motion imagery for licensing worldwide.-History:The organization originated...
and its website
BBC Motion Gallery, magazine subscription fulfilment, exhibitions, and live events such as Walking with Dinosaurs Live and Strictly Come Dancing The Live Tour.
These commercial activities allow BBC Worldwide to return profits and dividends to the BBC to re-invest in
public service programmingPublic broadcasting includes radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing and commercial financing.Public broadcasting may be...
. In 2007/08 BBC Worldwide invested £75.1m in in-house and independent programmes commissioned by the BBC. However, the BBC has often been criticised for the amount of money it makes from BBC Worldwide. Some commercial rivals protest at the advantage the company has from being associated with and being able to exploit the programme catalogue and resources of the BBC in order to provide its goods and services.
Sales, acquisitions and mergers
Prior to the Charter renewal in 2007, there was much speculation that the BBC might sell off at least some of Worldwide's assets, such as the magazine publishing arm (the third largest in the UK), to appease these criticisms and make a large profit from the sale in the process. However, a review of the BBC's commercial activities in 2004 concluded that this was not as advantageous as keeping the business and driving it harder. Instead, some changes to its remit, focus, structure and governance were made, e.g. that it would only publish titles in the UK linked to BBC programmes or key genres. As a result, BBC Worldwide sold
eve magazine to
Haymarket GroupHaymarket Media Group is a privately owned media company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It has offices in Australia, Belgium, China, Germany, India, Japan, Singapore and the United States....
in 2005. In 2006, the sell-off of certain businesses which were no longer core continued with the sale of
BBC BooksBBC Books is an imprint majority owned and managed by Random House. The minority shareholder is BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation...
to publisher
Random HouseRandom House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
.
In July 2004, it was announced that Worldwide's DVD release company, BBC Video, which had been releasing BBC programmes on the format and previously on videotape since the early 1980s, was to be merged with VCI, a video release company controlled by Woolworths Group plc. The new company created,
2 entertain Ltd2 Entertain is a British video and music publisher, formed by the merger of BBC Video and Video Collection International in 2004....
, was controlled 60% by Worldwide and 40% by Woolworths Group plc. This created the sixth biggest video company in the UK market, and the largest British-owned brand. Worldwide retained the rights in all the BBC output released by the new company. As of November 2008, Woolworths, which came into financial difficulties in the latter half of that year, confirmed that it was negotiating a deal to sell the remaining share of the company to Worldwide.
In 2007, BBC Worldwide purchased a 75% share in travel guide publisher
Lonely PlanetLonely Planet is the largest travel guide book and digital media publisher in the world. The company is owned by BBC Worldwide, which bought a 75% share from the founders Maureen and Tony Wheeler in 2007 and the final 25% in February 2011...
for £88.1m, its largest acquisition to date. The remaining 25% was purchased in February 2011.
In January 2009 it was announced that
OfcomOfcom is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003...
had put forward the recommendation that
Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
merge with either the commercial network
FiveChannel 5 is a television network that broadcasts in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1997, it was the fifth and final national terrestrial analogue network to launch. The station was branded as Five between 2002 and 2010...
or BBC Worldwide. Channel 4's preferred option of a partnership with the latter was confirmed by chief executive
Andy DuncanAndy Duncan was chief executive of Britain's Channel 4 television channel from July 2004 to November 2009, the first not to have a background in programme making. He was previously director of marketing, communications and audiences at the BBC and the founding chairman of Freeview...
, who added: "We're in discussions with BBC Worldwide at the moment and they're really very exciting."
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