Print the full section
 
Our successful Walking with Beasts TV tie-in books have been translated into 20 languages

 

We sold over 16 million books and audio products around the world

It was an outstanding year for our Consumer Publishing business. Landmark television programming across factual, children’s and cookery genres formed the basis for the 16 million books and audio products sold during the year, while the business as a whole underwent further dramatic growth through acquisition.

In July 2001, we acquired Chivers Communications plc, a major publisher of unabridged audio books on tape. Chivers has a catalogue of over 3000 unabridged readings of popular fiction by authors such as Agatha Christie, Dick Francis, EM Forster and Joanna Trollope as well as over 500 novels in large print book format.

 With a publishing and distribution subsidiary in the USA – the world’s biggest spoken word market – the acquisition of Chivers places us in prime position for expansion in key markets and has performed above plan to date.

During the previous year, BBC Worldwide acquired Cover to Cover, another of the UK’s major unabridged spoken word publishers, whose catalogue includes works by authors such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Dick King-Smith. Through this acquisition we also gained the spoken word licence for the first four Harry Potter novels, and these proved runaway bestsellers for us during the Christmas period.
 
page 1 of 2