Dean Possenniskie

World Screen Weekly, February 14, 2008

General Manager and Senior VP, EMEA

BBC Global Channels, BBC Worldwide

The BBC may have been a slow-starter in the global channels space, but it is working quickly to make up for lost time. Since unveiling its international network expansion plans in 2006, BBC Worldwide’s Global Channels division has already gained significant ground in Asia, with launches in Hong Kong, Singapore and India, and Dean Possenniskie is now looking to replicate that success in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Poland has already come on board, with four BBC channels available there—BBC Entertainment, BBC Knowledge, BBC Lifestyle and CBeebies. “That was quite a milestone for us,” says Possenniskie. “It’s the first time, anywhere in the world, that the BBC has launched channels in a fully localized language. And it’s the first time that any [company] has launched four channels in Poland, which is a pretty competitive market, overnight.”

The channels are performing well, Possenniskie says—CBeebies has rated as the number-one channel in its genre on the Cyfrowy Polsat platform—and he has ambitious plans to have a total of 17 channels across Europe by the end of this year. “Scandinavia, Spain, Central and Eastern Europe, and also Italy, are all markets where we spent a lot of time in 2007, [doing] a lot of research, [understanding] the market very well. We expect to be active in those markets across the next 12 months.” The African continent is also a top priority, he says, particularly South Africa.

Possenniskie’s strategy is to secure carriage for the entire BBC Worldwide Global Channels portfolio in one sitting, an attractive proposition for operators seeking a diverse offering for subscribers. The bouquet, he says, targets everyone from a “2-year-old on CBeebies through a 60-year-old on BBC Knowledge and BBC World. It’s a really complementary portfolio.”

There are markets, however, where that strategy may not be optimal, Possenniskie explains. “In Spain and Italy, we know that the really high skew of U.K. content on our channels such as BBC Lifestyle is not going to be as relevant. We would therefore take more time to localize the channel with local productions and so on. In other markets, such as Africa, Scandinavia and Poland, they love access to British culture and lifestyle. So it varies from market to market. But the majority of the markets will be launches of our full portfolio.”

In addition to expanding the current bouquet of BBC channels across EMEA, Possenniskie is looking forward to the upcoming launch of a new pan-European offering, BBC HD. “The BBC has the greenlight domestically in the U.K. to launch the BBC HD channel, which means we can count on a much larger pipeline of HD content across all genres coming through, which we’ll have access to for our international channel.”

Possenniskie is also pursuing non-linear options, offering up video-on-demand packages to operators, both free and subscription-based. “We’re very fortunate that we have rights to access all of our product on VOD. When we launched in Poland we also launched with localized websites from day one. We’re also concluding deals with different mobile companies in Poland. When we go into a market we’ll be looking to ensure that our viewers can access our content, whether it’s traditional linear or VOD, online or on mobile.”

As he is rolling out these multiplatform offerings in highly competitive markets, Possenniskie is confident that the values associated with the BBC brand will allow the portfolio to cut through the multichannel clutter. “That’s where the investment is really important; we make the commitment to invest in a local office and a local team and a huge amount of research and we buy the best quality programming, we’re not just limited to BBC programming.” Possenniskie notes that plans are under way to open an office in Poland, and once that operation is up and running, a local programming team will look to develop Polish versions of some of the BBC’s successful formats.

Possenniskie jumped at the opportunity to work at the BBC following more than six years with MTV Networks International in Europe, developing and launching new channels in emerging markets. “It’s never easy to leave a place you love and I really did love it. But [I was attracted to] the unique scale of this opportunity, in terms of the BBC’s resources and the quality of what we have. I really believe in the public-service value of the BBC.”

Possenniskie in fact got his start in the TV business in the public-broadcasting sector, working at TVNZ in New Zealand. It was a dramatic change from his prior occupation, as a foreign exchange trader. “I decided one day I’d had enough of it, so I backpacked around the world for six months, I had a great time! I got back to New Zealand and had a job waiting for me at the bank and decided I would put my nose out and see what else was out there. Fortunately I managed to get a role with TVNZ, and just loved it.”

For Possenniskie, one of the highlights of his role today is seeing the BBC’s channel expansion “start to snowball. We’ve been approached by operators in different countries, which is great. A year ago it was still a pretty strong sales job to bring new channels to any market. As we get channels up and running in Scandinavia, Africa and [as we roll out] BBC HD Europe, I think we’ll see towards the end of this year that we’ve built a fantastic channel network.”

—By Mansha Daswani