BBC Worldwide

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BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995.

Worldwide is responsible for a wide range of commercial activities, primarily connected in some way with the output of the main BBC. The company's work includes investment in film and television production - Worldwide will often provide additional budget for BBC productions in return for various commercial rights to the programmes, and has also done so for non-BBC programmes as well, such as the Red Production Company drama Mine All Mine for the BBC's rival ITV network in 2004.

Other major areas of business include international programming sale and distribution, foreign and domestic satellite and cable television channels (such as UKTV in the UK, BBC America in the United States and BBC Canada in Canada), book and magazine publishing (most famously the Radio Times), VHS and DVD releases, spoken word and music audio products, CD-ROMs, English language teaching, videos for education and training, interactive telephony, library footage sales, magazine subscription fulfilment, exhibitions, live events, film and media monitoring.

These commercial activities allow BBC Worldwide to return profits to the BBC to re-invest in public service programming (£189 million during 2005/2006). However, the BBC has often been criticised for the amount of money it makes from Worldwide. Some commercial rivals protest at the advantage the company has from being associated with and being able to exploit the programme catalogue and resources of the BBC in order to provide its goods and services.

There has been much speculation that the BBC is planning to sell off at least some of Worldwide's assets, such as the magazine publishing arm (the third largest in the UK), to appease these criticisms and make a large profit from the sale in the process. However, a review of the BBC's commercial activities concluded that it would only publish titles linked to BBC programmes or key genres. As a result, BBC Worldwide sold eve magazine to Haymarket Group in 2005. In 2006, the sell-off of its divisions continued with the sale of BBC Books to publisher Random House.

In July 2004, it was announced that Worldwide's DVD release company, BBC Video, which had been releasing BBC programmes on the format and previously on videotape since the early 1980s, was to be merged with VCI, a video release company controlled by Woolworths Group plc. The new company created, 2 entertain Ltd, is controlled 60% by Worldwide and 40% by Woolworths Group plc. This creates the sixth biggest video company in the UK market, and the largest British-owned brand. Worldwide retains the rights in all the BBC output released by the new company.