Record television sales

The region achieved record television sales of more than £32m in an increasingly competitive environment - in order to boost audiences and/or advertising revenues, a number of major terrestrial broadcasters have begun to invest more in their own production, moving internationally acquired programmes to peripheral slots in the schedule.

A boost from branded blocks

BBC Worldwide has succeeded in countering these obstacles by launching branded blocks such as BBC Animal Zone, BBC Britcom and BBC Learning Zone.

The branded block carried by Vox channel in Germany - BBC Exclusiv - has been exceptionally successful. For instance, The Human Body series saw ratings rise to a record level for the channel and advertising revenues of around £200,000 from just six programmes.

Branded blocks have allowed BBC Worldwide to raise the international profile of the BBC brand and promote BBC Worldwide merchandise, as well as increasing television programme sales.

Cross-media publishing

Sales from publishing - which spans magazines, books, videos and merchandising - grew by a spectacular 75% this year. This result owed much to the phenomenal success of Teletubbies, particularly its cross-media launch in northern Europe before Christmas. This has been a good example of BBC Worldwide managing its intellectual property rights across multiple formats.

BBC PRIME leads channel growth

BBC PRIME reaches more than seven million homes in the EMEIA region. Its financial performance this year was excellent, with sales rising to £7.2m. The channel is forecast to break even in 1999-2000.

During the year, we put in place the building blocks needed for the channel to break even on target. In particular, we launched it to more than 300,000 new subscribers in Africa in March 1999 (through an agreement with DSTV). We are now targeting further expansion in new markets in the Middle East, including Israel. According to European Monitoring Survey (EMS) ratings, BBC PRIME was the fastest-growing channel in Europe last year, with a 53% rise in the number of people sampled who said they watched it during the previous week.

We also worked with Discovery Communications throughout the year to facilitate the launch of Animal Planet in India and People & Arts in Portugal (both in March 1999).

Specialist Sales

This division, which includes Library Sales, Inflight Programming, Sports Programming, Audiocall and Formats (eg That's Life) generated £21m in global sales this year, up 2% on last year.

BBC Library Sales - a fast-growing business supplying footage and specialist programmes and operated through offices in London, New York and Sydney - delivered record global sales, exceeding £10m for the first time and accounting for half the Specialist Sales total.

Audiocall, which provides phone-in services, achieved record sales and continued to develop its profitable joint venture with Tele Alliance Ltd.