Guardian News and Media/London
The eye-watering £31mn that Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear executive producer Andy Wilman made in just a few years partnering with BBC Worldwide may make for uncomfortable headlines.
Yet even though the BBC has now unwound this partnership, Tim Davie, the new chief executive of the corporation’s commercial arm, says he would do a similar deal again under the right circumstances.
Davie has been parachuted in as a safe pair of hands at what some argue is a business that strayed too far from its core remit of generating extra revenue from existing BBC brands under former chief executive John Smith.
But he is not going to be scared off from striking deals he thinks will be commercially beneficial. “I will continue to be flexible and look at options on an individual (talent) basis,” says Davie.
“The idea of us going into a partnership and creating something highly profitable for licence fee payers, and inevitably for those individuals, I wouldn’t rule out in the future.”
He admits that he has set a “very high hurdle” for such deals in the future, while pointing out that they can pay off handsomely, with the Clarkson deal making £17mn for the corporation over five years.
BBC Worldwide reported a healthy 55% surge in pre-tax profits to £160.9mn in the year to the end of March, thanks in part to proceeds from the sale of assets such as Lonely Planet, as revenues rose 3% to £1.16bn.
In its annual report, the sale of the travel guides publisher, which resulted in a £80mn loss and led to a rap on the knuckles for Worldwide from the BBC Trust, is called the symbolic “end of an era” of what was arguably overly aggressive expansion.
Davie says that he intends to make public his new strategic vision for BBC Worldwide in October.
A sensitive issue will be sorting out a remuneration policy that has seen headline-hitting pay days for Smith - who made more than £4mn in his last four years - and which Davie admits will be overhauled.
“If our system doesn’t pass the simplicity, accountability and transparency test we won’t implement it,” he says.
The new-look BBC Worldwide will focus on familiar objectives such as becoming more international (just 4% of revenues come from Asia - “we’re at the starting gate,” says Davie), through launching more TV channels and building its position as the biggest seller of programmes outside of the US studios.
BBC Worldwide’s engine is sales and distribution, the division that sells shows from Doctor Who to Call the Midwife around the world and which accounts for 50% of total profits.
Another area targeted for further growth is BBC-branded channels. There are already 34 globally, including the BBC America cable channel, which account for almost 32% of BBC Worldwide’s profits.
Given this, some observers doubt Davie has the right credentials for the job. “He has no experience of TV, content, international distribution, this is not a world he understands at all,” says one former BBC executive. “He is enormously confident in his own abilities but is he the BBC’s man, or does he have his own vision?”
Davie is bullish while remaining pragmatic, mindful of the recent failure of the BBC’s channels in India. “You will continue to see the roll-out of BBC channels in markets around the world,” he says. “We will be very selective, we are not going to do everything everywhere just to plant flags. I am not willing to have a loss-making channel for a long period simply to have a presence.”