London – BBC Worldwide’s (BBCW) growth strategies appear to be on track, given the strong showing of Asian buyers at BBC Showcase held in Brighton, UK, 24-27 February 2008. In 2006/07, 46% of BBCW’s total revenues came from overseas, up from 41% in 2005/06. The company plans to raise that proportion to around two-thirds by 2012. Year on year rest of the world sales grew 4.9%, with profit rising 26.9% to 8.5million UK pounds (US$16.8million). Measured in local currency, sales grew by 20% in Asia’s emerging markets and 36% in Japan. It would appear to be no coincidence that BBCW’s July 2007-appointed managing director, global television sales (and manager of the BBC Showcase event) is Steve Macallister, former head of Disney-ABC International TV-Asia Pacific’s distribution business. Macallister told Television Asia Plus that the major changes implemented thus far have been the appointments of senior vice president and general manager Asia, Joyce Cheung and vice president research for global TV sales Stella Creasey. A senior vice president appointment for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) is also on the cards. At least 40 delegates from Asia, plus pan-regional buyers, were in attendance from 24 companies across 9 markets. And two Asia Pacific markets, Australia and India, are classified as Group One priority markets for growth in BBCW’s Annual Review 2006/7. The Australia contingent included ABC, Network Ten, Nine Network Australia and Seven Network. As for India, BBCW had no direct sales there before 2000. “In a market where 95% of the content is locally produced, we are currently the strongest UK distributor,” explains Monisha Shah, director emerging markets, EMEIA. “Our (factual) business started with sale of one title in 2000 – Walking with Dinosaurs – and currently includes a wide and diverse list including Madhur Jaffrey’s Flavours of India, Wildlife Specials, Genghis Khan, Hannibal and blue chip titles such as Blue Planet and Planet Earth. Similarly, we had no children’s business in India before 2000. We licensed one title, Teletubbies, in 2001 to terrestrial broadcaster, Doordarshan and its… success meant that within two years, 80% of our children’s catalogue was licensed into India.” BBC Showcase’s full digitization this year meant all 550 delegates had their own private ‘digi-booths’ that could be pre-loaded by sales staff with targeted content – buyers’ viewing habits could be monitored by content, time spent viewing each show, and how buyers rated what they had seen.