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How much does the BBC make from overseas sales?

The BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, sells BBC content all over the place. How much does it make? You asked... we answered.

Programme sales are handled by BBC Worldwide. Their annual report for 2009/10 is online, and says that their total sales (including UK) were £1,074m for this period.

The full report is available as a downloadable PDF from the site, and breaks up the revenue into the various business activities. In here, "sales and distribution" makes up £214m of income, though I suspect your question covers more than their tight definition - not least, sales of Stig dolls are not included under this category!

The profit of BBC Worldwide in this period was £145m. BBC Worldwide contributes this profit (and a little bit more, in fact) back to the BBC's public service programming budget: in 2009/10 they contributed £151m back to the BBC.

To put that figure into context, the BBC Annual Report, presumably quoting figures over a slightly different time-frame, says that BBC Worldwide's contribution to the BBC was £119m, while licence-fee revenue contributed £3,447m. Using the BBC Annual Report figures, BBC Worldwide therefore contributes the equivalent of an additional £4.93 to every TV licence sold.

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