Posted Sunday, October 5, 2003; 12.48BST
As the BBC became more a more confident global player, it was inevitable that it would try its luck in the biggest media arena of all. BBC America was launched five years ago and is growing rapidly. It's now available in 37 million homes, almost half of all homes with cable, up from 27 million a year ago. Though still a small player in America's vast TV market, BBC America has established a fervent audience. "There's something that makes you feel classy and high-end when you hear those plummy voices, which can be completely unfair to the low-grade, raunchy comedy that so much of British TV has been about," says Marty Kaplan, associate dean of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. "When delivered in those accents, even broad sex farces seem Oxbridge." BBC News is also getting a boost in America. It is currently carried on 221 public broadcasting stations in the U.S., up dramatically from just a dozen five years ago.

A new BBC gadget called WiCam is another big business opportunity, one that could move the BBC into a world far removed from broadcasting — that of providing security at shopping malls. WiCam is a lightweight digital wireless camera that was developed by the BBC's R and D department, a 200-strong group that over the years has come up with such innovations as Nicam stereo sound for television. In the past, the BBC licensed its technology for others to exploit commercially. No longer. One of BBC Ventures' offshoots is a firm called BBC Vecta, whose role is to fish around for innovations it can market. BBC WiScape, the company behind WiCam, is its first business. The €57,160 WiCam was launched as a commercial product this year, and sales are starting to pick up, says WiScape's general manager Robin Shephard. Shephard reckons WiCam could become a €72 million business over the next three to five years.

There are some things the commercial services of the BBC won't do. Flynn of BBC Ventures says working with tobacco companies is forbidden because the Beeb is trying to protect its brand reputation. BBC Worldwide recently stopped a promotion with McDonald's in the U.K. that involved giving away Tweenies characters with Happy Meals, because of growing public concern about the health effects of fast-food diets. Over at BBC Broadcast's creative services division, Bryant says he's shying away from political assignments. Bryant recently turned down an opportunity to develop content around upcoming European elections. "We didn't feel it fitted," Bryant says.

Making advertiser-funded programming for Renault's new Scenic apparently does fit. The deal goes far beyond two-minute pseudo-documentaries. The spots, which feature several scenic British locations, start and end with a credit announcing Renault's sponsorship. They will air on UK Gold, UK Style and UK History — three of the stations BBC Worldwide operates in the U.K. as part of a fifty-fifty joint venture with Flextech Television, a subsidiary of Telewest Communications. The magazines division of BBC Worldwide has produced a 36-page color supplement that revisits some of the locations shown in the spots. It will be distributed this month as a Renault-branded insert in issues of Radio Times, BBC History Magazine and BBC Good Homes Magazine.

Jonathan Wignall, Renault's U.K. advertising manager, says he invited about 70 firms to pitch for the Scenic business. The BBC won hands down. "It was very much a case of them bringing the idea to us," says Wignall, who is British. How does it feel to do business with what is a cultural icon he grew up with, Britain's preeminent public service broadcaster? Not all that strange, he says. "We're now used to working with them as a commercial operation." This is definitely not your Auntie anymore.

With reporting by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen/New York

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