17.07.02
BBC
Worldwide's record £106 million contribution to BBC
Bestsellers
include The Blue Planet, Walking with Beasts, The Weakest Link,
Top of the Pops, Tweenies, and Delia Smith.
BBC
Worldwide Annual Review 2001/2 Highlights
BBC
Worldwide's Review for the financial year 2001/2, published today,
reveals that cash returned to the BBC for investment in programming
and other services topped the £100 million mark for the first
time.
A record
£106 million was returned this year, compared to £96
million in the previous financial year.
Figures
for 2001/2 also reveal double digit growth in turnover for the third
year running.
Against
a background of global media recession, BBC Worldwide grew sales
from £587 million in 2000/01 to £660 million
an increase of 12% year on year.
At
current rates of exchange, BBC Worldwide's turnover also boosts
it into the category of billion dollar sales companies for the first
time.
Profit
excluding BBC World and beeb.com grew by 23% to £43 million.
EBITDA
was up by 14% from £105 million to £120 million, a significantly
better margin than many of our competitors.
Profit
before interest and tax (including exceptionals) was up by 4% from
£25 million to £26 million.
These
results were achieved through a number of factors: strong performances
in television sales and consumer publishing; acquisition in the
UK; global partnerships; the continuing strength of BBC Worldwide's
business in key international territories and also - an increasingly
important part of BBC Worldwide's strategy - deals with third parties.
During
the year, BBC Worldwide licensed more than 40,000 hours of BBC programming
around the world, grew its global network of TV channels to reach
more than 460 million homes, sold 100 million magazines and around
30 million book, video, DVD, audio, music and multimedia products.
Best
selling titles, across formats, included The Weakest Link, Walking
with Beasts, The Blue Planet, Delia Smith's How to Cook: Book Three,
Simon Schama's A History of Britain Volume II, Top of the Pops,
and Bob the Builder.
BBC
Worldwide also continued the roll out of successful children's brands
such as Tweenies and Teletubbies around the world.
BBC
Worldwide's Consumer Publishing business acquired Chivers Communications
plc, a major publisher of unabridged books on tape, further strengthening
the company's presence in the UK and US audio market sector and
boosting BBC Worldwide's sales in that sector to £26 million.
The
co-production partnership with Discovery Communications Inc was
extended for a further 10 years and a new partnership with leading
Canadian media company, Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc, saw
the launch of two new channels in Canada: BBC Canada and BBC Kids.
In
the UK, the joint venture with Flextech Television, UKTV, made an
overall profit and the channels, most notably UK Gold and UK Drama,
grew their distribution.
The
year also saw the launch of a new channel in the UKTV family: UK
Food.
In
terms of television exports, BBC Worldwide grew sales by 15% to
£172 million against a flat market and also won a Queen's
Award for Enterprise 2002 in the International Trade category for
its export achievement.
There
were strong performances, too, from BBC Worldwide's international
channels, with BBC America increasing its distribution by 61% to
27 million US homes.
BBC
World's coverage of the tragic events of September 11th reached
an estimated additional 300 million viewers around the world.
In
the year overall, BBC World grew distribution by 22% to reach 215
million homes.
Working
with third parties has become an increasingly important part of
BBC Worldwide's strategy.
Deals
in 2001/2 included one with Disney to publish and launch some of
their magazine titles; distribution deals for Galleon, BBC Worldwide's
subscription fulfilment company, for Hello! and Private Eye; an
international broadcast distribution deal with attheraces for race
meetings held at 49 key British racecourses; a deal with US broadcaster
CBS News to become their exclusive global archive sales agent and
a continuing relationship between BBC Audiocall, BBC Worldwide's
telephony company, and Channel 4 to provide the telephone voting
system for Big Brother.
BBC
Worldwide Chief Executive, Rupert Gavin, said: "These remarkable
results show consistent growth against a very challenging market
and mark us out as one of the UK's best-performing media companies.
"We
have been able to make a significant contribution to BBC programming
this year and we are firmly on course to achieve our long-term financial
targets by 2007 £1 billion turnover and £200
million contribution to the BBC."
Notes
to Editors
BBC Worldwide Annual Review
2001/2 Highlights
BBC
Worldwide Limited is the main commercial arm, and a wholly owned
subsidiary, of the BBC.
The
company was formed in 1994 to develop a co-ordinated approach to
the BBC's commercial activities: television, channels, publishing,
product licensing, Internet and interactive.
BBC
Worldwide exists to maximise the value of the BBC's assets for the
benefit of the licence payer and reinvest in public service programming.
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