Darren Childs, BBC Worldwide Channels

It has been a tumultuous day for BBC Worldwide when Broadcast sits down with Darren Childs, managing director for the channels business at the corporation’s commercial arm. Just that morning, reports emerged that BBC executives were considering the part-privatisation of BBCW as part of a wide-ranging review.

“I opened the papers this morning and thought, right, that’ll be the first question of my Broadcast interview,” Childs says with a laugh.

“What’s been written is just one option and it’s good that the organisation considers all the options in the current climate,” he says. “But there are lots of public policy debates that go on around the BBC and we are focused on growing our business, specifically within channels.”

Since joining in 2005, that focus has driven Childs to transform what had been an underperforming channels business into a stable of 44 wholly owned and joint-venture stations that currently reach more than 300 million homes around the world.

Based around a portfolio of five thematic channels - BBC Entertainment, BBC Knowledge, BBC Lifestyle, CBeebies and BBC HD - their reach spans Asia, India, Africa, Australia, Latin America and Europe. This is on top of existing channels BBC America and BBC Prime, and joint ventures such as UKTV and Animal Planet. It all adds up to 135% profits growth to £29.6m plus a 27.7% rise in sales to £225.6m, in 2008/09.

“I didn’t know when we started if there would be a big appetite for English-language content,” recalls Childs. “The research was done but you never know until you launch in a market.”

Childs came to BBC Worldwide from Sony Pictures Television International, where he was senior vice-president for international networks across EMEA. “I’d seen the US guys get into international multichannel early and land grab capacity, build lots of channels and grow,” he says. “I thought, how come UK content isn’t being sweated as much internationally as US content?”

His decision to join Worldwide was informed by the belief that the BBC was likely to be the last significant UK organisation that could become a global broadcast brand, based on the UKTV suite of thematic channels. Less than four years later, BBCW is the number one international channel provider in South Africa, the leading international channel provider on Poland’s biggest DTH platform (Polesat) and number two in Australia’s pay-TV market, beating all the major US providers, from Viacom and Disney to Sony and HBO. “I never expected to beat the big boys,” says Childs.

UKTV

Back with UKTV, where BBCW’s idea of a thematic portfolio of channels began, Childs is eyeing major plans, both domestically and internationally. “We would like to take control of UKTV,” he states. “If Virgin doesn’t want to stay a shareholder, it now makes sense for us to bring it in-house. It’s right in the sweet spot of what we’re trying to do with our channels business, so having control of it makes complete sense.”

He says there are plans for a thematic HD channel and UKTV may even consider a 3D station. “We’re looking at HD to see what unique opportunity we could present in pay-TV homes,” says Childs, adding that he foresees a launch before summer next year.

After the rebranding of 11 UKTV channels in under two years, he reveals his ambition to use the resources behind the portfolio to establish new stations around the world. “I’m not thinking about the brands necessarily, but there’s a lot of expertise and resource there that we could use in other parts of Europe,” he says.

“When I travel around the world, a lot of channel operators say they want ‘a Dave’. It’s an imaginative piece of branding that has captured the imagination of platforms worldwide. There’s a lot of benefit to what we could exploit across Europe and the rest of the world with that phenomenal group of people.”

International production

From Childs’ perspective, the next stage of development will be to take UK-sourced shows and produce them for other markets. In Australia, UKTV has invested in original drama False Witness, produced by indie Screentime, while in July, BBC Knowledge premiered original commission One Small Step: The Australian Story, a doc about the country’s involvement in the Apollo 11 mission. “When you look at any of the top shows, they’re mostly locally produced,” he says.

Looking further ahead, Childs want this content to flow both ways. “Success for us in 10 years could be a show we develop in India or Argentina that we bring back to a big network here,” he says, adding that BBCW does not want to limit its ambition to “just be an exporter”. However, that role as an exporter is a considerable one, with Childs stating the growth as “incomparable to how it was 12 months ago”.

BBC Worldwide Channels will acquire 16,000 hours of UK programming this year - split roughly 50% internal production and 50% external - making a considerable contribution toward the country’s total exports. “We’ve got a lot of hungry mouths to feed - we need to keep fresh, innovative content coming through.

“The business has not been immune to the recession. A key part of our channels business was to open national ad sales markets for the first time,” explains Childs. “But the market has definitely slowed down and it’s proving hard work. Had we been a more mature business, we would have been more affected, but we have been able to cut our cloth to ensure we can continue growing.”

Expansion and contraction

So will the market see BBC Worldwide launch more channels in the current climate? “God yes,” says Childs.

“There is a lot of geographical growth for us to deliver over the next two to four years. We’re looking at central and eastern Europe, Russia, Brazil, India, Germany, France. We need to secure the distribution. The next piece is evolving to prepare for how technology will change consumption habits.”

Childs explains that he is laying the foundations ahead of what he believes will be a significant reduction in smaller channel brands on a global scale.

“I’m a strong believer that there will be major contraction in the number of channel brands. People don’t watch the 200 channels available to them,” he says. “But platforms will demand more from the brands than just a linear television stream. They will want branded VoD, HD and broadband content streams. Success will be for companies that can marshal that into a cohesive branded environment and supply it.”