BBC Worldwide’s Tim Davie

CEO Tim Davie highlights BBC Worldwide’s key accomplishments in the last year and sees potential for growth in several areas.

WS: What has been some of BBCWW’s best-selling content?
DAVIE: Core brands like Dancing with the Stars and Doctor Who have continued to go from strength to strength. In the last two years, Dancing with the Stars, the international version of Strictly Come Dancing, has reached more than 50 countries, with Cambodia, Serbia and Costa Rica as some of the most recent countries to launch a local version. Doctor Who was our top-selling show last year. It was licensed to 189 territories and fans across South Korea, Australia, the U.S., Mexico, Brazil and the U.K. got to meet the Twelfth doctor, Peter Capaldi, and his companion Clara, Jenna Coleman, on the 12-day global tour.

We’ve also seen an increased appetite for premium British drama with titles such as The Honourable Woman, Wolf Hall and Orphan Black, as well as notable success for natural history landmarks like Life Stories and factual entertainment formats including Top Gear.

WS: How have you been boosting production in various territories?
DAVIE: We have continued to grow our production capabilities in India, the U.S. and France. The production house in France had a standout year in 2014/15, increasing revenue by more than 50 percent with well-loved BBC programs such as Antiques Roadshow, The Weakest Link and Love Productions’ Sewing Bee and Bake Off being produced for French audiences and performing well.

WS: Tell us about the strategy behind launching the channels BBC First, BBC Brit and BBC Earth.
DAVIE: The strategy was to focus on the BBC’s core strengths where we were clearly differentiated versus others. If you look at U.K. drama, British factual entertainment or high-quality natural history, the BBC are world leaders. To date we’ve launched in eight markets, including BBC First in Australia, the Netherlands and Belgium; and BBC Brit and BBC Earth in Poland, the Nordics, Turkey, Romania and Hungary. In the coming months our genre channels will launch in Latin America, Asia and South Africa, helping to bring premium content to more audiences across the globe on multiple platforms.

WS: On which other global brands is BBC Worldwide focusing?
DAVIE: We see great potential in brands such as CBeebies. Only this year we’ve launched CBeebies Land at the Alton Towers [theme park in Staffordshire, England]. We also rolled out our CBeebies English-language centers in China. We have other new children’s franchises such as Hey Duggee and Go Jetters, which offer exciting opportunities for the future.

WS: How did the venture with AMC Networks come about and what does this bring to BBC America and BBC Worldwide?
DAVIE: The venture with AMC Networks (AMCN) for a 49.9-percent stake in BBC America was born out of the belief [that] both the BBC and AMCN have a common passion for high-quality television and we saw the benefit of working together, adding BBC America to AMCN’s channel portfolio, as well as developing new productions that we can utilize across our networks. The venture offers BBC America an opportunity to further grow its reach, building on recent success, including its tenth consecutive year of ratings growth.

WS: What is your strategy for the North American market in the areas of production, channels and licensing product?
DAVIE: Our strategy is to keep driving growth through constant focus on the highest quality programming which can be exploited on BBC America, SVOD partners and other channels. Over the coming year and beyond, you will see us proactively increase our development of new formats through our production business, as well as growing our core franchises such as award-winning drama series Orphan Black and Doctor Who, which have exceptionally deep fan bases.

WS: Tell us about the plans for BBC Store, the online download-to-own service.
DAVIE: We launch BBC Store this autumn in the U.K. with a simple aim: to offer U.K. consumers the opportunity to buy and keep a wide range of the BBC’s back catalogue—both recent titles, which are no longer available after the 30-day catch-up window has expired on BBC iPlayer, and some previously unavailable gems from our archive.

WS: How is BBC Worldwide working with the BBC to help it finance programming as its license-fee funding is coming under pressure?
DAVIE: Through building the BBC brands and audiences across the globe, as well as increasing commercial returns, we continue to deliver growing returns to the BBC. This year we returned a record £226.5 million ($355 million), an increase of almost a third on the previous year, which was the equivalent to 12.6 percent of the total content spend for BBC Television. We also invested £94.4 million ($148 million) in BBC commissions from both BBC Productions and indies. All of this goes some way to fund key titles which last year included Life Story, Doctor Who and Wolf Hall and for the year ahead, the highly anticipated War and Peace, The Hunt and the final installment of Wallander.

WS: How is BBC Worldwide helping the U.K. creative industry? What investments has it made in British independent production houses?
DAVIE: We support more than 250 independent producers by selling their content around the world and last year we returned £113.1 million ($177.3 million) to the sector. We have also been active this year in securing stakes in new and growing U.K. independent companies, including Lookout Point and Curve Media, and we will continue to be active in this area. We have also increased our efforts in supporting creative industries export initiatives such as the GREAT Festival of Creativity, which took place in Shanghai, and the Technology Innovators Forum in both China and Los Angeles.

WS: In which areas do you foresee growth in the next 12 to 24 months?
DAVIE: There are a number of opportunities: continuing to strengthen our content and production pipeline, expanding our global channel footprint and launching direct-to-consumer services like BBC Store.