Word: bbc
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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BBCA owes its rapid U.S. expansion in good measure to Discovery Communications, the company, based in Silver Spring, Md., that owns the Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel and other cable networks. As a joint-venture partner with the BBC, Discovery provided start-up funds for BBCA, agreed to cross-promote its shows on Discovery channels, sell ads for BBCA and work out distribution deals with cable and satellite providers...
Perhaps the best example of the Beeb's growing influence in the U.S. is NBC's version of the BBC hit Coupling, which premiered this fall. NBC hoped its knock-off would be the next Friends, lavished it with publicity and ran it on a premium Thursday-night time slot. Viewers merely shrugged, while critics savaged it. Comparing it to the British version, which airs on BBCA, the New York Times wrote, "Coupling is the Milli Vanilli of network television: the sitcom equivalent of lip-synching someone else's song." Yet BBC America is capitalizing. Thanks to the notoriety...
...Britain, the success of BBCA and the BBC's other commercial ventures is viewed with a wary eye. As its annual report coyly points out, "The BBC does not have shareholders and does not aim to make a profit." But since 2000, under director general Greg Dyke, another side of the corporation has pursued an aggressive commercial-expansion strategy designed to make it an international media powerhouse. The firm is gaining clout as a global broadcaster, content producer, book and magazine publisher, ad-services vendor and Internet firm. "We're fighting in the big boys' league," says Rupert Gavin, chief...
With a rich and varied library of shows, the BBC makes big money selling its programs abroad--everything from Teletubbies to Changing Spaces. The Beeb has deals with non-British cable and satellite operators for BBC World (a 24-hour news channel) and BBC Prime (featuring popular-entertainment shows) as well as BBC America. Already Britain's largest magazine publisher, it's launching a slew of new titles. It's also touting business for a new state-of-the-art broadcast center in London, and has started producing "branded content" for advertisers. British viewers recently saw two-minute "documentaries" that...
...media companies that are increasingly bumping up against the BBC in the marketplace, the question is, Can a publicly funded media behemoth compete fairly? And even if it can, should it? By tradition, the Beeb is supposed to produce programs in the "public interest," although exactly what that means has never been unequivocally defined. At the same time, it tries to be popular in order to justify the license fee. It's a difficult juggling act, and competitors complain that it is using public money to duplicate the cooking, gardening and home-makeover shows that other broadcasters...