beeb.com is now established as one of the UK's leading consumer e-commerce portals.

beeb Ventures Ltd (bVL)
bVL was formed on 1 August 2000, when major US-based technology investor TH Lee Putnam Ventures (THLi) agreed to invest £32.5m for a minority stake in BBC Worldwide's beeb.com and beeb.net businesses. The subsidiary company now operates internet shopping portal beeb.com and free Internet Service Provider beeb.net.

beeb.com (link)
Launched in 1997, beeb.com has rapidly increased traffic, revenue and content, and according to MMXI research (November 2000), is the UK's fourth most visited retail website. Traffic increased by 50%, with revenue up 74% from Q4 1999/00 to Q4 2000/01.

beeb.com features shopping guides including Top Gear, Gardeners' World and Holiday, and webzines based on BBC Worldwide magazine brands such as Radio Times.

beeb.net (link)
During the year, ISP beeb.net reached operating profit, with more than 145,000 subscribers. It is one of the best performing ISPs on the market - ranked as "the second best ISP for performance and reliability over the last six months." [Source: Internet Magazine, May 2001]

Multimedia
BBC Multimedia had an excellent year, with sales increasing by 119% on 1999/00. Several CD-ROMs scored major consumer successes. Tweenies Ready to Play became our best-selling UK title of the year. It was the top-selling children's CD-ROM for the year and has sold more than 100,000 units.

BBC Multimedia also received a number of awards, including a Gold award from BIMA for Tweenies Ready to Play, and a Gold win at the IVCA Awards for Bob the Builder - Can We Fix It?

Console games
BBC Multimedia also released titles on PlayStation* and Game Boy Color, including Bob the Builder, Tweenies, Teletubbies and Noddy. Robot Wars - Metal Mayhem on Game Boy was a huge success with more than 50,000 units dispatched since December 2000.

*Registered Trademark

Audiocall
As well as providing response services to high profile BBC productions, Audiocall has secured ongoing contracts with Channel 4, E4 and Channel 5.

Audiocall's telephone voting system for Channel 4's Big Brother smashed UK television vote records, handling 18.38m votes during series one.

BDS
BDS expanded its listings operations in the UK and Europe. Revenue increased over 24% on the previous year, and the business won another major European contract.

Galleon
Fulfilment house Galleon has developed a number of solutions for internet and interactive TV subscription ordering and online customer relationship management. Its SubscribeONLINE product, which allows publishers to accept magazine subscriptions securely via the internet, has already fulfilled more than 10,000 customer subscriptions.

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