Our channels now carry
our programmes and talent to
more than 460 million homes

Our portfolio of wholly-owned and joint venture international channels aims to generate revenue, build equity and raise BBC brand awareness. We now reach more than 460 million homes* – a sharp increase from 365 million last year – the largest global channel reach of any British media company.

Through our network of international platforms, we provide BBC programming for all audiences. Growth comes from identifying new territories and new channel genres, and this year we succeeded in doing both, including launching a new UK food channel.

Partnerships play a major part in our growth. With broadcaster Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc, we launched two channels in Canada – BBC Canada and BBC Kids, the first BBC children’s channel.

Animal Planet and People+Arts, operated in partnership with Discovery Communications Inc (DCI), have again shown impressive growth. Animal Planet is now available in almost 150 million homes and People+Arts in Latin America grew by 18% to 13.2 million homes.

Our partnership with Flextech for the UKTV family of channels made an overall profit in 2001 as well as continuing to generate a cash contribution to BBC Worldwide from programme sales. UK Gold is now the UK’s second most popular cable and satellite channel and this year the partnership launched a dedicated cookery channel, UK Food.

UKTV (Australia) is now received by one million homes, up 9% on last year. This channel is jointly owned by BBC Worldwide, FOXTEL and FremantleMedia.