Annual Report 2001/02

Children's

300 million children in China can now enjoy Teletubbies in Mandarin

Children’s characters and programmes from the BBC, now shown under the brand names of CBBC and CBeebies, have become an integral part of childhood the world over.

Sales of television programmes, books, videos, toys and merchandising have carried brands like Teletubbies and Tweenies into millions of homes around the globe – Teletubbies can be seen in 120 countries and has been translated into 45 languages.

Teletubbies’ most recent launch was in China where it is versioned in Mandarin. Transmitting to over 300 million children, Teletubbies is the first BBC pre-school television series to be broadcast in this key territory.

Meanwhile, Teletubbies Everywhere, created by Ragdoll, is a new 10-minute series of Teletubbies programming, developed for UK and global audiences. The programmes feature first concepts such as shapes and numbers as a series of simple games and live-action inserts of young children growing up in different parts of the world.

Tweenies, created by Tell-Tale Productions, was launched two years after Teletubbies, and the characters are equally loved by children around the world.

An average of 190,000 Tweenies magazines are bought every month and more than 2.4 million Tweenies books and 2.3 million videos have been bought since launch. We have sold around 800,000 Tweenies videos during the year. In September 2001, three Tweenies toys were in the UK Top 20 soft toys chart.

The Tweenies live shows – The Christmas Present and Fab-a-Rooney – were launched this year, bringing the excitement of dynamic large-scale theatre to sell-out crowds of thousands of young fans.

Books are very much part of children’s lives. We published several titles linked to the year’s hot properties, including novelty books to coincide with the launch of the first Harry Potter film, Bob the Builder ranges, and children’s books linked to The Blue Planet and Walking with Beasts.

Our priorities are to maintain and widen the popularity of the established brands and grow BBC Worldwide’s children’s portfolio, both in the pre-school and
pre-teen market.

Andy Pandy, the classic children’s favourite, has a new series, jointly commissioned by BBC Worldwide and Ben Productions, which began transmission during the year. A range of Andy Pandy merchandise will be launched this summer, joining Bill & Ben, which we launched in 2001.

BBC Worldwide has also invested in the intellectual property rights for Ace Lightning, a pre-teen action comedy which combines live-action characters with computer-generated animation. For younger children, we have invested in Fimbles, CBBC’s magical new pre-school series. Both Ace Lightning and Fimbles will begin transmission in autumn 2002, with the launch of the publishing and merchandise ranges to follow.