Singapore – BBC Worldwide Channels will introduce advertising on BBC Knowledge in Asia from 19 October this year. Sales will be managed by BBC Worldwide Asia’s advertising sales team based in Singapore, whose sales portfolio already includes BBC World News, BBC.com and BBC mobile. Sunita Rajan, VP sales – Asia & Australasia, BBC Worldwide Channels Asia said that viewers have responded well to BBC Knowledge in the region. Chris Dobson, GM and EVP of global advertising sales, said that distribution in Singapore had been pivotal in the decision to introduce ads to BBC Knowledge. “Obviously another half a million homes, in an upscale market like Singapore, was a tipping point,” he said, of BBC Worldwide Channels’ move from SingTel mio TV to StarHub Digital Cable TV on 1 August 2009. When it was pointed out that sibling brand BBC Entertainment has been with StarHub since its launch but advertising has not yet been introduced on that channel, Dobson said that BBC Knowledge has a closer affinity with audiences and advertisers for BBC World News, which has carried ads for 12 years. Television Asia Plus also asked whether the push for advertising on BBC Knowledge, and the recent launch of a print publication for the channel brand, had anything to do with the fact that BBC Worldwide Channels Asia’s SVP and GM Mark Whitehead joined the company from the ad sales side of rival factual brand Discovery – which also publishes a magazine. Dobson said that Whitehead’s primary role is to expand distribution of the channel brands, but that he “obviously has a very good insight into the commercial implications of that task.”