BBC kids production shifts to BBCS

The BBC is merging its in-house children’s production unit into its commercial arm, BBC Studios (BBCS), as part of efforts to build new global brands within the BBC and on third-party platforms.

Patricia Hidalgo

BBC Children’s Production, maker of shows such as Blue Peter, JoJo & Gran Gran, My Mum Tracy Beaker, Something Special, Crackerjack and Ferne & Rory, will transfer to BBCS from April 2022.

It means BBC’s previously in-house children’s production team will be able to produce content for a range of broadcasters and platforms, alongside BBC channels, as Bluey and Hey Duggee distributor BBCS already does.

This comes against a backdrop of an increasingly buoyant global children’s entertainment market, which has grown dramatically in recent years with the help of investment from well-funded global players.

Competing in the market for commissions and working for a range of customers will result in “a better return on investment from programme development,” BBCS said.

BBC Children’s Production follows plans for BBC Global News and BBC3’s in-house production team to move into BBCS over the course of this year, with the latter becoming part of BBCS from April, bringing its multi-genre team into line with the BBC’s model for UK production.

The changes come as part of the BBC’s efforts, led by BBCS, to build commercial income, one of four top priorities set out by director general Tim Davie, the former boss of BBCS, in his first week in the role last year.

In 2019/20, financial returns from BBCS, which is the BBC’s largest commercial subsidiary, totalled £276m (US$385m), principally via content investment and dividends.

Tim Davie

It is on track to meet its five-year returns commitment of £1.2bn [US$1.7bn] by 2021/22, an increase of 18% on the previous five years, despite a significant impact this year from the Covid-19 pandemic.

BBCS has now committed to grow this total by a further 30% to a new target of £1.5bn in the five years from 2022/23, with domestic and international ventures such as SVoD service BritBox key parts of the strategy to achieve this.

The BritBox International joint venture with ITV Studios is set to enter up to 25 markets, while a new SVoD channel called BBC Select launched last month in the US and Canada.

Davie said: “We are actively building commercial income with ambitious commercial plans for high-quality programmes, vital funding and international audiences. The BBC’s commercial activity will become even more important in future as we expand commercial disciplines to new areas, such as children’s production, and – despite a challenging market – seek to achieve the highest possible return from all our assets. This enhances value for licence fee payers and boosts the wider creative economy.”

Patricia Hidalgo Reina, director of BBC Children’s & Education, added: “Moving children’s production into BBC Studios will safeguard our specialism within a producer of scale, enabling them to continue to make world-class public service content for our UK audiences, and increasing their potential of taking British children’s content to the wider global market.”