BBC Worldwide is the UK's ninth largest books publisher.

Best-selling BBC books
Four out of the Sunday Telegraph's top ten best-sellers of 2000 were BBC Worldwide books - Delia's How to Cook: Books One and Two, Simon Schama's A History of Britain Volume I and Terry Wogan's Is It Me? Three out of the Sunday Times' 2000 top ten best-sellers list - which excludes cookery books - also went to BBC Worldwide books, this time Terry Wogan, Simon Schama and Steve Redgrave.

The consumer sales value of BBC Worldwide books increased by double the market average (10.1% against 5% Source: Booktrack).

The year's runaway success was Simon Schama's A History of Britain Volume I, a best-seller in books, video and audio. 150,000 copies of the hardback were sold.

BBC Worldwide's new autobiography strand launched very successfully, with Terry Wogan's Is It Me? selling more than 135,000 copies. Steve Redgrave's autobiography, A Golden Age, sold 57,000 copies.

BBC Worldwide is the UK's leading publisher of food and drink books, and this strand continued to be a major strength, from the Delia Smith best-sellers to Gary Rhodes. His New British Classics has sold more than 200,000 copies since launch.

In the US, our catalogue of 38 titles increased sales by 50% and we worked with industry leaders such as Dorling Kindersley and Scholastic. In South America we established a pan-regional publishing partnership with Folio.

Video and DVD
As a leading player in the video industry, BBC Worldwide continued to expand its catalogue of VHS titles with new comedy, factual and drama releases.

In the UK, cult success The League of Gentlemen Series One sold more than 140,000 units, while a buy-one-get-one free offer for comedy classic Only Fools and Horses led to unit sales of more than a million. The BBC's video catalogue of Comedy Greats also sold well in Australia.

In addition, BBC Worldwide continued to strengthen its position as the UK's leading non-film DVD distributor, with nearly 30 titles including The Planets, Walking with Dinosaurs and classics such as Blackadder and Doctor Who.

In the US, a deal with Warner transformed the BBC's video business overnight from a licensing business into a fully-fledged marketing operation.

Walking with Dinosaurs was launched on video and DVD, with combined sales of nearly 750,000 units. Its sequel, The Ballad of Big Al, has already sold 100,000 units into trade.

Tying in with the US launch of the movie Chicken Run, the BBC relaunched three Wallace and Gromit titles on video. A DVD launch is planned for autumn 2001.

The growth of DVD in the US and Canada is reflected by the fact that with fewer than ten titles on DVD, fully 22% of sales came from that format.

Back to top