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´óÏó´«Ã½ Worldwide, the commercial arm of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ (British Broadcasting Corporation), is Europe's largest exporter of television programmes. With over 50,000 hours of content in its catalogue covering all genres from drama and comedy to children’s and factual, it is the distributor of the best of British programming.

Based in London, UK, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Worldwide's Sales & Distribution business has nine international offices with over 1,000 active clients. It also runs ´óÏó´«Ã½ Showcase, the world's biggest programme trade fair organised by a single distributor.

Doctor Who, Primeval, Robin Hood and In the Night Garden are four of its hit series and count among the top rated UK programmes telecast in South Korea during the 12 month period from July 2008.

Its Sales & Distribution business manages ´óÏó´«Ã½ Worldwide's content sales across television, video on demand and international DVD. Over the last 12 months it has sold the stunning natural history series such as Wild China and Yellowstone to KBS, classic dramas Cranford and Oliver Twist to EBS, Secret Show to Tooniverse, reality series Baby Borrowers to Q Channel and contemporary comedy Extras to Fox Korea amongst others. Long standing relationships with broadcasters across South Korea has given British content a platform and ´óÏó´«Ã½ Worldwide, with its Asian Sales & Distribution business based in Hong Kong, is keen to continue to explore every opportunity in this growing market at Seoul's annual BCWW conference (10-12th Sept).

Joyce Yeung, SVP & GM Asia for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Worldwide Sales & Distribution, commented: "South Korea is a very important territory for us and while we will continue to place ´óÏó´«Ã½W content on terrestrial and C&S channels, we will be putting a special focus on digital media given the advanced technology development of Korea.

"We are also very interested in working with local partners for co-production projects as we have successfully done in other Asian markets such as Singapore and China; Sun Tzu, co produced with MDA/Mediacorp Channel News Asia in Singapore and China Multimedia Networks, and Wild China co produced with CTV."

Format licensing is another key area for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Worldwide who have introduced programmes such as the international hit Dancing with the Stars to Japan (NTV), India (Sony) and China (Hunan). This format, full of glitz and glamour, has local celebrities partnered with professional ballroom dancers as they compete to impress the judges and viewers with a variety of dances. Another celebrity-driven format, Just the Two of Us, where internationally renowned singers pair up with famous faces to perform live duets, has enjoyed success on Hunan TV in China.

Lee Leschasin