Within a few weeks the BBC, the world's oldest and best-known public service broadcaster, will sign a deal with American Discovery Communications, owner of the Discovery channel. It will represent a major shift in the BBC's commercial ventures.
The deal gives the BBC the potential to reach world-wide audiences with its vast library of programmes.
The BBC and Discovery are already co-operating on a number of channels called Animal Planet. They are available in Northern Europe and Latin America.
BBC programmes will also be available on Animal Planet in the US and the People and Arts channel which offers predominantly factual programmes, including history, arts and cultural programmes. It has already started in Latin America and will also be available in the US.
The Discovery deal gives the BBC a guaranteed $175 million (£121.5 million) over a five years, but it is only one aspect of the BBC's fast-growing commercial sector.
BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the corporation, gave £73.5 million towards programme-making and other public service activities in 1996. It is this annual cash injection which is the justification for the commercial activities when sceptical voices are raised about diluting the BBC's traditional remit.
Already, the BBC is Europe's largest exporter of television programmes. But it plans to be more than just a programme provider. It is introducing its own BBC cable channel in the US. The channel will be marketed and distributed by Discovery.
This will give the BBC real access to the world's most important media market. It will transmit BBC programmes directly into American homes.
In a partnership deal with Flextech Plc, the BBC introduced the first of four subscription channels in Britain last year under the banner, UKTV. These are UK Gold, an entertainment channel; UK Horizon, for factual programmes; UK Arena, for arts programming and UK Style, living and leisure.
Then there is BBC World, the commercial cable and satellite news channel distributed to 50 million homes in 187 countries. It is competing against CNN, Sky and Euronews, recently bought by Britain's ITN, in the highly-competitive 24-hour news market.
BBC Worldwide is also involved in publishing, including the Radio Times, the BBC's first commercial venture, started in 1923, and Britain's most popular magazine. It is expected to be the basis of a subscription channel, offering what's on, listings and clips.
It entered the multi-media publishing business in 1996 with a range of CD-ROM titles. It has also formed an alliance with ICL to develop commercial online services for the Internet.
If the BBC was pushed into the commercial world by the arrival of the new broadcasting environment, it has discovered it has two immensely valuable assets its name and its archives. Mr Mark Young, commercial director of BBC Worldwide and managing director of BBC World, says he would not even begin to try to put a value on the BBC archive.
He admits there will always be tension between the public service section of the BBC and the commercial arm, but does not believe the latter is forcing licence holders to pay again for what they have already paid for.
The licence payer has seen the programmes, so they become available. If the BBC sold the programmes on to somebody else they would have to pay to see them again. With the cable subscription channels, the BBC is maximising its earning capacity, he says.
Four years ago, BBC Worldwide was contributing £50 million a year to the corporation. The strategy is to raise that to £150 million a year by 2006, he says.
The BBC name is more problematic. It will not appear on any of the channels which it operates with the American-owned Flextech in Britain. However, UKTV will have access to all the BBC's libraries in exchange for an increasing amount of money.
Some commentators in Britain see the BBC becoming a hybrid, rather than the purest of public service broadcasters. It will, for instance, be offering UKTV programmes made exclusively for it by BBC producers, but at a fraction of the cost of making programmes for the BBC itself £6,000 an hour, as opposed to £37,000 an hour for daytime programmes, or £124,000 an hour for documentaries and features at the BBC. That, some argue, might have long-term implications for programme making at the Beeb.
