The BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, has won a reprieve from being sold by the government after it said it is has "no commitment" to offloading the business.

Last year, the Labour government included BBC Worldwide in the portfolio of assets it was considering selling and urged the corporation to "look more widely at the options for greater financial and operational separation, including a sale or partial sale".

The decision to include Worldwide – which makes money from a string of global television channels and by selling programmes and formats, such as Strictly Come Dancing, to foreign broadcasters – in the portfolio of assets was a surprise to the BBC.

However, sources said that under the new coalition government – which has announced the sale or partial commercialisation of other assets such as the Royal Mail Group – BBC Worldwide is "off the hook".

A Treasury spokeswoman said: "There is no commitment to sell BBC Worldwide. There is no equivalent [asset] list any more."

Last year the BBC director general, Mark Thompson, fired a warning shot across the government's bows over selling Worldwide when he warned that any sale could lead to the company becoming "an empty vessel".

He also said Worldwide would "only be worth a fraction of its present value" if it was sold off and stripped of the BBC brand and that "the right question to ask is neither how to chop it back … but how to develop and exploit it".

BBC Worldwide this year reported record profits – up more than a third to £145.2m in the year to the end of March. It has also been mooted as an asset that the BBC could use against raising money to help close its pension deficit, which is thought to be between £1.5bn and £2bn, although it remains to be seen what the Pension Ombudsman thinks.

In the past the BBC itself has considered plans for the partial sale or stock market flotation of BBC Worldwide. Last month the BBC Trust gave the go-ahead for the sale of a majority stake in the BBC Magazines business, which publishes titles including the Radio Times and Top Gear.

The BBC finance director, Zarin Patel, said it was a "tempting" way of pulling more money into its coffers but said there were concerns about losing control of the BBC name.

Analysts have valued BBC Worldwide at more than £2bn, which means that if the BBC sold a 25% stake it could raise in excess of £500m.

By:- Tara Conlan

Source:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/07/bbc-worldwide-sale