BBC Trust

A consultation on the BBC’s detailed plans to turn its production arm BBC Studios into a commercial subsidiary, has been launched by the BBC Trust today.

In May, the Government published its White Paper ‘A BBC for the Future: A broadcaster of distinction’, which set out its recommendations for the next Charter period. The White Paper gave in-principle support for BBC Studios, and the BBC has now submitted its detailed plans to the Trust, seeking regulatory approval to establish BBC Studios as a wholly-owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC Group.  It is currently part of the BBC Public Service.

As recommended in the White Paper, the Trust has today launched an eight-week public consultation on the BBC’s submission to gather industry views on the proposals.

Alongside this consultation, the Trust will conduct its regulatory assessment for commercial proposals, testing whether the proposals submitted by the BBC meet the following criteria: 

• They must fit with the BBC’s public purpose activities – whether BBC Studios and its activities are connected to the public purposes and are appropriate to be carried out in association with them.
• They must be commercially efficient – the Trust must be satisfied that BBC Studios is commercially viable, including a requirement that BBC Studios delivers a level of profitability and return on investment in line with market norms.
• They must not jeopardise the good reputation of the BBC or the value of its brand
• They must comply with the BBC’s fair trading guidelines, and in particular avoid distorting the market. 

BBC Trustee and Chair of the Trust’s Services Committee Suzanna Taverne said:

"The BBC’s plans to transform its production arm and create BBC Studios would be an historic shift in the way it makes programmes. The plans need to be properly and independently assessed, and through our four established tests and our consultation we’ll assess whether moving BBC production onto a commercial footing would deliver what’s best for audiences, and would avoid unfairly disadvantaging the rest of the production sector."   

The public consultation will close on Friday 11 November and the Trust anticipates reaching a decision on the plans in December.

The BBC’s proposals for BBC Studios can be found here and the public consultation launched by the Trust today can be found here.

Notes to Editors

1. The Trust published its advice to the Government on the BBC’s proposals for the reform of TV content supply in February this year (link), based on the broad plans the BBC had set out at that point.  The Trust had conducted a public consultation as part of this process, seeking views on broad principles for the future of BBC content supply, while the BBC were still developing their detailed plans for BBC Studios.
2. The BBC submitted their detailed plans to the Trust in late August 2016. This includes additional commercially sensitive and legally privileged information which has not been published as part of the consultation.