For Tim Davie, now 49, moving from a fast-paced American working environment at Pepsi to UK’s public service broadcaster BBC in 2005 was a culture shock. “The subjectivity of creative work is not an easy choice, but one has to go with the flow. I stepped in (to the BBC) at a time when I wanted change,” says he. A big reason was his need to bring up his three boys back home in the UK. Davie started as director of BBC's marketing, communication and audiences division before becoming head of radio 2008. He is now CEO, BBC Worldwide, and director, global.
“The public dimension to the BBC can create pressures,” says he. Like when he was asked to step in as acting director-general of the corporation following George Entwistle’s resignation in 2012. This was a time marred with accusations of a cover up of the abuse by star presenter Jimmy Savile among other things. Davie’s steadying of fraught nerves within and outside the BBC at the time marked him as a star within the system. Now, besides heading Worldwide he oversees editorial strategy and brand for BBC’s international news operation.
Davie, who was part of UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s delegation to India earlier this month, has just got out of a panel discussion at the India-UK Tech summit when we meet at the ITC Maurya in Delhi. He is full of beans and energetic, just like he was at our meeting in Liverpool last year. He talks of his eight-day holiday with his family in Rajasthan earlier this year as we walk to the executive club. A pleasant November afternoon is marred by the pollution-induced haze visible through the glass doors on our left. It is the sort of afternoon to discuss fiction, natural history and the state of the world. We order our cappuccinos and begin.
body. Its independence and ability to invest in good quality journalism, thanks to the £3.7 billion licence fees that TV owning British homes pay, has made the BBC a trusted news brand globally. Does its presence in the UK keep private broadcasters in line? It is a question that many Indians, worried about the fast declining news TV market in India, wonder about.
“The quality standard (for news and creative) in the UK is very high in general. The BBC is an important component of it. There is no doubt that the impartiality of its news output sets a standard. But that is not solely at the BBC’s doorstep. It is part of a unique broadcasting ecosystem and explains why we have been able to generate so much business for BBC Worldwide,” says he biting into a cookie.
BBC Worldwide, the BBC’s commercial arm, supports the licence fee by monetising the content created for the UK market, outside. Sherlock, Top Gear and Doctor Who among other shows and its natural history programming are bought by hundreds of broadcasters and OTT platforms across the world. In 2015 it generated over a billion pounds in revenues, returning £222 million to the corporation.
How on earth do shows that are quintessentially British, from location to the cultural referencing, work outside? Doctor Who, a long running sci-fi series about a nameless 2,000 year old alien with two hearts is a hit in over 200 countries, some of which have no former connection with the UK, like India or the other commonwealth nations. At a Doctor Who event for 4,000 people in South Korea last year, 100,000 turned up. Within 24 hours of its release Sherlock’s season three was watched by 80 million people on YouKu, the Chinese equivalent of YouTube. Britain’s Got Talent, British Idol (both fremantle) or Strictly Come Dancing (BBC Worldwide), which Indians know as India’s Got Talent, Indian Idol and Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa are among the dozens of formats that UK’s independent production firms create and export, making it the largest seller of formats globally.
“The things that have worked for us (globally) are the ones that have first worked in the UK. Many of our shows — Sherlock, Doctor Who or the natural history programming come from a public service mindset. They need five-six years of investment,” says he. There were just three episodes of 90 minutes each in the first three seasons of Sherlock, a brilliantly done contemporary take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic. But the show is now one of Worldwide’s biggest hits taking drama’s contribution to about half of its topline. In the process of supporting the licence fee BBC Worldwide has created a studio that is second only to Hollywood’s top few. How does it manage the quality of creative output at this scale.
By creating hubs within the UK production business and giving them lots of headroom, says Davie. BBC Worldwide has minority stakes in several independent producers in return for rights to distribute their content. “They keep their creative magic while benefitting from the distribution scale we offer,” says Davie. That incidentally is a model that has worked in kids’ programming in India which is otherwise dominated by broadcasters who usually use production houses as low-cost vendors. Chhota Bheem, one of the biggest kids’ characters was born out of a co-production between the struggling Green Gold Animation and Turner International in 2008.
Worldwide also has co-production deals with Netflix, Amazon and others in its bid to grow digitally. Online gets Davie talking about what could overcome the limitation of pay tv in India. “In India the mobile unlocks potential (for content),” says he. In the year ending March 2016 Worldwide’s Indian arm had produced 270 hours of content and syndicated approximately 1,000 hours, all for the India market. Last year BBC Worldwide identified ten countries it wants to specially focus on. These include India, China, Mexico and Indonesia among others.
The coffee is over. Davie talks of the second part of David Attenborough’s Planet Earth that has just been released. “Like many Brits I have grown up with an incredible natural history education because of the BBC. It is a big thing that I work with David Attenborough,” says he. From a cola marketer to a full-blooded public broadcasting man; the transformation is complete.
“The public dimension to the BBC can create pressures,” says he. Like when he was asked to step in as acting director-general of the corporation following George Entwistle’s resignation in 2012. This was a time marred with accusations of a cover up of the abuse by star presenter Jimmy Savile among other things. Davie’s steadying of fraught nerves within and outside the BBC at the time marked him as a star within the system. Now, besides heading Worldwide he oversees editorial strategy and brand for BBC’s international news operation.
Davie, who was part of UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s delegation to India earlier this month, has just got out of a panel discussion at the India-UK Tech summit when we meet at the ITC Maurya in Delhi. He is full of beans and energetic, just like he was at our meeting in Liverpool last year. He talks of his eight-day holiday with his family in Rajasthan earlier this year as we walk to the executive club. A pleasant November afternoon is marred by the pollution-induced haze visible through the glass doors on our left. It is the sort of afternoon to discuss fiction, natural history and the state of the world. We order our cappuccinos and begin.
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“At the end of the day you need to step back and put things in perspective. It was a tough time when I came in. But eventually what the organisation stands for and its values are important. BBC is a force for good. It lives and dies by public support and we have to earn that support everyday,” says Davie. In a survey across the UK earlier this year more than three-fourths of Britons said that the corporation should remain independent of the government, regulator or any other
body. Its independence and ability to invest in good quality journalism, thanks to the £3.7 billion licence fees that TV owning British homes pay, has made the BBC a trusted news brand globally. Does its presence in the UK keep private broadcasters in line? It is a question that many Indians, worried about the fast declining news TV market in India, wonder about.
“The quality standard (for news and creative) in the UK is very high in general. The BBC is an important component of it. There is no doubt that the impartiality of its news output sets a standard. But that is not solely at the BBC’s doorstep. It is part of a unique broadcasting ecosystem and explains why we have been able to generate so much business for BBC Worldwide,” says he biting into a cookie.
BBC Worldwide, the BBC’s commercial arm, supports the licence fee by monetising the content created for the UK market, outside. Sherlock, Top Gear and Doctor Who among other shows and its natural history programming are bought by hundreds of broadcasters and OTT platforms across the world. In 2015 it generated over a billion pounds in revenues, returning £222 million to the corporation.
How on earth do shows that are quintessentially British, from location to the cultural referencing, work outside? Doctor Who, a long running sci-fi series about a nameless 2,000 year old alien with two hearts is a hit in over 200 countries, some of which have no former connection with the UK, like India or the other commonwealth nations. At a Doctor Who event for 4,000 people in South Korea last year, 100,000 turned up. Within 24 hours of its release Sherlock’s season three was watched by 80 million people on YouKu, the Chinese equivalent of YouTube. Britain’s Got Talent, British Idol (both fremantle) or Strictly Come Dancing (BBC Worldwide), which Indians know as India’s Got Talent, Indian Idol and Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa are among the dozens of formats that UK’s independent production firms create and export, making it the largest seller of formats globally.
“The things that have worked for us (globally) are the ones that have first worked in the UK. Many of our shows — Sherlock, Doctor Who or the natural history programming come from a public service mindset. They need five-six years of investment,” says he. There were just three episodes of 90 minutes each in the first three seasons of Sherlock, a brilliantly done contemporary take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic. But the show is now one of Worldwide’s biggest hits taking drama’s contribution to about half of its topline. In the process of supporting the licence fee BBC Worldwide has created a studio that is second only to Hollywood’s top few. How does it manage the quality of creative output at this scale.
By creating hubs within the UK production business and giving them lots of headroom, says Davie. BBC Worldwide has minority stakes in several independent producers in return for rights to distribute their content. “They keep their creative magic while benefitting from the distribution scale we offer,” says Davie. That incidentally is a model that has worked in kids’ programming in India which is otherwise dominated by broadcasters who usually use production houses as low-cost vendors. Chhota Bheem, one of the biggest kids’ characters was born out of a co-production between the struggling Green Gold Animation and Turner International in 2008.
Worldwide also has co-production deals with Netflix, Amazon and others in its bid to grow digitally. Online gets Davie talking about what could overcome the limitation of pay tv in India. “In India the mobile unlocks potential (for content),” says he. In the year ending March 2016 Worldwide’s Indian arm had produced 270 hours of content and syndicated approximately 1,000 hours, all for the India market. Last year BBC Worldwide identified ten countries it wants to specially focus on. These include India, China, Mexico and Indonesia among others.
The coffee is over. Davie talks of the second part of David Attenborough’s Planet Earth that has just been released. “Like many Brits I have grown up with an incredible natural history education because of the BBC. It is a big thing that I work with David Attenborough,” says he. From a cola marketer to a full-blooded public broadcasting man; the transformation is complete.