London/Singapore- Today, April 2, sees the BBC present a new, single face for all its international channels following the February 23 announcement of a merger between the airtime and distribution sales teams of BBC World and BBC Worldwide Global Channels.

It has been a seamless transition to the new order, which comes into effect today, according to BBC insiders. Underscoring the benefits of the merger, a BBC source said, "This makes us a very much stronger proposition. Instead of having one guy representing one channel going to a client, and the next day another person turning up representing two or three channels, we present a single face to the market. All our channels are strong BBC brands, with the values the BBC brings to television. There is only one other operation that supplies that kind of number of channels, and that's Turner."

The new sales structure at BBC Global Channels Asia-Pacific represents all the BBC's commercial channels- BBC World, BBC Entertainment, BBC Knowledge, BBC Lifestyle, CBeebies and BBC HD.

BBC Worldwide announced March 27 the appointment of Steve Macallister as Managing Director Global TV Sales, starting in July. He replaces Mark Young, who quit to join UK-based IMG Media as Senior VP of entertainment sales and acquisitions worldwide. Macallister joins from Buena Vista International Television, Asia Pacific (BVITV-AP) the international television distribution arm of The Walt Disney Company, where he manages BVITV's distribution business in the region. The move reunites Macillister with BBC Worldwide Chairman Etienne de Villiers. The two worked together at Disney, where de Villiers was President of Disney Television International from 1994 to 2000.

Christine Leo-McKerrow runs the operation in Asia as Senior Vice President, BBC Global Channels Asia-Pacific. The newly re-arranged roster of senior BBC executives includes Barbra Mckay, Head of Distribution, Australasia; Monty Ghai, Director, Network Development, East Asia (South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, Guam); Nic van Zwanenberg, Director, Network Development, Greater and Indo China (HK, Macau, Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, China); Amit Upadhyay, Head of Distribution Kaz Matsuda, Managing Director, BBC World Japan; and Sunita Rajan, Vice President Ad Sales, Asia and Australasia.

Strategic direction, editorial content, marketing communications and support services for the BBC World channel will continue to be managed by sister company BBC World Ltd.