BBC unveils changes to Worldwide governance

BBC Vision director Jana Bennett will no longer sit on the board of the broadcaster’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, to prevent possible conflicts of interest. In addition, the chief executive of BBC Worldwide will no longer sit on the BBC Executive Board.

The move is part of a wider change to governance of BBC Worldwide that will see the latter’s board reduced in size. The relationship between BBC Worldwide and the rest of the BBC will be strengthened by a rule that the BBC Worldwide chairman must be a non-executive director of the BBC Executive Board.

The threshold at which transactions by BBC Worldwide must be referred to the BBC Trust for approval has also been lowered from £50m (€55.6m) to £30m.

Separately, BBC Worldwide has secured output deals to distribute its content to a number of new territories. The company will distribute over 1,200 hours of programming to new channels Spiegel Geschichte in Germany and Channel 7 in Kazakhstan, as well as to Italy’s Rai, Finland’s YLE and Norway’s NRK.