As noted in last year's Review, focusing on building the scale
of all of our business areas in a single key market, as we have
done since 2007 in Australia, has been a highly effective tactic in
growing international revenue. Sales and profit in this territory
continued to improve in 2010/11. In 2010/11 we turned our
attentions firmly to the USA, the world's largest media market.
Market conditions and our activity and plans are set out n our Case study: Expanding in
the USA page.
We also took the decision in the year to evolve the orientation
of the company gradually to one that is focused on five geographic
regions outside the UK. Each region is being overseen by one of our
Executive team: Marcus Arthur for Australasia, Steve Macallister
for Asia, Paul Dempsey for EMEA, Jana Bennett for Latin America and
Herb Scannell for North America. We are also in the process of
appointing Executive Vice Presidents for each. These new roles are
designed to maximise revenue growth across all divisions in each
region and to look for many new business development
opportunities.
TV distribution
At the heart of our international expansion is our well
established TV programme and format sales operation. We have sales
offices in most major markets (see Where we are in the world)
and stage the world's only TV sales fair to be hosted by a single
distributor - BBC Showcase (below).
Our customer base has expanded alongside the growth in both
digital and pay-TV sectors, and we are assiduous in following up
the right opportunities to get our content seen in every market,
looking for clients with whom we can build a long-term relationship
wherever possible. In addition our sales teams have been highly
successful in using frontlist titles to broaden interest in related
areas of our back catalogue.
Formats
One challenge that exercises every TV distributor is finding new
hit formats for the international market. Our jewel in the crown,
Dancing with the Stars, continues to perform very well. It was
licensed to four new markets in 2010/11 - Armenia, South Korea,
Indonesia and Vietnam - affirming its position as the world's most
successful reality TV format in the Guinness Book of Records.
We are also working on other unscripted formats, including
Junior Doctors, and we have 19 scripted formats (drama and
situation comedy) in development.
Publishing
Across our publishing businesses we have continued to tailor
products for local markets. Lonely Planet advanced plans to
expand its offering in languages other than English, releasing the
first of its locally produced Chinese language guides in China's
provinces in May 2010. The team plans to establish operations in
India over the next 12 months to develop print and digital products
for Indian travellers and has given Globo Livros the exclusive
right in Brazil to publish Lonely Planet guides in Portuguese.
Magazines now has 56 licences for international editions of its
titles in place across 60 territories, as well as joint-venture
businesses in India and Australia. Lonely Planet magazine has been
a particular success with eight international editions in print at
year end and two more due to launch in 2011.
BBC-branded platforms
Our other major vehicles for international expansion are our Channels business and
BBC.com.