In 2006 the Global Channels business undertook a comprehensive review of its strategy and growth opportunities in the existing BBC-branded business, and also reassessed each joint venture. The outcome of this review was a completely new strategy for its BBC-branded business, extending its wholly owned portfolio to create a range of five thematic channels designed to maximise the value and visibility of the BBC brand to audiences worldwide.

The new wholly owned portfolio comprises BBC Entertainment, BBC Knowledge, BBC Lifestyle, CBeebies and BBC HD in addition to the existing wholly owned channels, BBC America, BBC Prime and BBC Food.

From 1 April 2007, Global Channels joined forces with the distribution and advertising sales teams from BBC World - the BBC's commercially funded, 24-hour, global news and information channel - allowing the teams to present a single face to market for this and all five new channels.

Global Channels achieved excellent growth during 2006/07, tripling its profit to £20.9m versus the previous year from revenues of £169.0m. Global Channels now reach 259m homes worldwide.

WHOLLY OWNED CHANNELS

During the year, work began on replacing BBC Prime - the mixed genre, English language service - with BBC Entertainment, which represents the best of contemporary drama and entertainment and is tailored to appeal to local audiences. The process started in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia. The early media response to BBC Entertainment is an encouraging indicator of what the new strategy should deliver - The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), for example, hailed BBC Entertainment as the "television success story" of the year. Shortly after the year end, BBC Entertainment and CBeebies launched in India.

Global Channels plans to repeat the early success in Asia across Africa, Europe and Latin America. During the year, a new programme strategy was introduced and BBC Prime in South Africa became the number one international pay-TV channel in the territory. BBC Food, which is currently available in Scandinavia, Middle East and Africa, will have a new content strategy and will be rebranded as BBC Lifestyle. In preparation for these launches, the business has invested extensively in analysing and understanding audiences in all its territories to build a clear picture of what programmes resonate with local audiences overseas, how they choose to enjoy content and how they perceive the BBC brand.

In the US, BBC Worldwide sold its stake in Animal Planet US back to Discovery Communications Inc. (DCI) for $80m. BBC America's advertising sales and distribution relationship with DCI was also restructured to reduce the level of commission it will pay for these services in the future.