| This year
BBC Worldwide has maintained strength in both parts of the region
- Asia and Australasia - with successes in all areas: television
programme sales, publishing and joint venture channels. Several
BBC brands, notably Teletubbies, Wallace & Gromit
and Top of the Pops, are thriving.
Teletubbies
continued success
In Australia
and New Zealand Teletubbies is established in multiple
formats. During the year, over one million books were sold;
Teletubbies reached number one in the Australian video
charts, with three 'multi-platinum' titles, and the
Teletubbies magazine - the first local version of a
BBC magazine published in the region - became a top seller
in its category within two months of its launch.
Meanwhile
in Asia, Teletubbies are now on television in Singapore,
Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, Hong Kong and Japan, with Taiwan,
Philippines and Burma to be added in 1999. In the first month
of release in Korea, more than 70,000 video double-packs (Here
Come the Teletubbies and Dance With the Teletubbies)
were sold.
Other
regional successes
The
Human Body and Life of Birds are other cross-format
brands doing well throughout the region. Our joint venture
with Discovery, Animal Planet, was launched in Asia
in June 1998.
Australasia
(Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands)
Revenues
grew by 16% in dollar value during a tight year for the economy
as a whole. This healthy result meant that - despite a 21%
fall in the value of the Australian currency - revenues in
pounds sterling were still up 8% on last year. More importantly,
our contribution to the BBC rose by 12% year-on-year. UK "TV,
our joint venture channel with Foxtel and Pearson, saw subscriptions
up by 35% and can now be received in almost all multichannel
Australian homes (via either cable or satellite).
Drama
and Light Entertainment lead the way
Drama
and Light Entertainment, such as The Lakes, Vanity Fair
and Red Dwarf, continued to drive programme sales in
Australasia. Factual programmes also did well, especially
Life of Birds, The Human Body and the Omnibus
and Reputations strands. BBC News continued to be seen
on four out of five terrestrial networks in Australia as well
as TVNZ in New Zealand.
Publishing
successes
Life
of Birds and The Human Body had a good year in
book and video formats. Strong growth was evident in cookery
books, including titles by Delia Smith and Rick Stein, but
the biggest seller in publishing remained Teletubbies.
More of
our publishing activities - book sales and licensing - moved
from London to Sydney to bring our account management closer
to our key customers.
Asia
Against
all odds - the depressed economic climate in Asia and the
associated dramatic fall in spending on television advertising
- BBC Worldwide succeeded in maintaining its level of revenue
this year in Asia.
Leading
distributor of British television
BBC Worldwide
is the number one British distributor of television programmes
in Asia. In addition to the Teletubbies success, this
year we launched Top of the Pops in Japan and in Thailand
(re-hosted in Thai).
We also
established seven branded blocks with broadcasters in Hong
Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, mainly
in the factual and natural history genres.
We have
begun to regionalise publishing in Asia - with book, video
and audio sales now managed in Hong Kong and export in Sydney.
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