BBC America (PatrZDZ's vision)

**BBC America** is an American television network, owned and operated by BBC Worldwide Americas, and available on both cable and satellite. Unlike the BBC's domestic channels in the United Kingdom, BBC America does not receive funding from the British licence fee (which is the principal funding for the BBC's channels within the United Kingdom), as the BBC cannot fund any of its channels that are available outside the United Kingdom. Consequently, BBC America operates as a commercial-supported channel and accepts traditional advertising. It is also funded by television subscription fees.

As of September 2018, BBC America is available to about 80.9 million television households (87.8% of pay television customers) in the United States.

## History

BBC America was launched on March 29, 1998, presenting a mixture of comedy, drama and lifestyle programs from BBC Television and other British television broadcasters including ITV and Channel 4. In the channel's early days, it focused on repeats of popular lifestyle shows such as *Changing Rooms* and *Ground Force*. BBC America's head of television programming later stated that the channel needed to establish a niche, since non-British viewers found the lifestyle shows appealing. Most of the newer programs appeared as part of BBC America's evening schedule.

After CEO Paul Lee was appointed president of ABC Family in 2009, the network appointed Bill Hilary from Comedy Central to serve as its chief executive officer. Hilary appointed Kathryn Mitchell to the new position of general manager. Under Hilary's tenure, BBC America was restructured; it moved its main offices to New York City and had its programming budget increase substantially. The channel was led by Garth Ancier, who served as the president of BBC Worldwide Americas from February 2007 until 2010, when he was succeeded by former MTV Networks executive Herb Scannell. Meanwhile, Perry Simon serves as general manager.

## Programming

Some of the programs on the channel are edited either for adult content or to allow for commercials. Occasionally, comedy shows are run in specially formatted 40-minute blocks and a few first-run drama programs are broadcast in a longer block that allows them to run to their original broadcast length. Additional series that has been previously broadcast may periodically return to the schedule as part of the network's rotation of daytime programming.

### Original programming and co-productions

In the mid-2000s, BBC America produced a few of its own shows along with some joint productions, including Sharpe's Challenge, part of the Sharpe series of made-for-television movies and co-produced with ITV; and The State Within and Jekyll, which were co-productions with the BBC. The first original series produced solely by the channel was Copper, which premiered in the summer of 2012.

BBC America has also branched into co-producing British series, including Robin Hood, The Musketeers, Killing Eve, Mood and from its fourth series, the revival of Doctor Who (until 2022). They also co-produced the Canadian series Orphan Black.

## Newscasts

BBC America simulcasts at least four newscasts during the day from its sister channel, BBC World with U.S. commercials inserted.

The network was in discussions to unveil a weekly news program fronted by Newsnight host Jeremy Paxman. He was to introduce a synopsis of Newsnight items with an international aspect and was expected to bring his brash interviewing style to bear on American politicians. "Jeremy Paxman is the sort of person that Americans will just eat up," Garth Ancier told the Financial Times. An international edition of Newsnight debuted on February 29, 2008, in the 10 pm time slot.

During major breaking news situations, the network will sometimes take BBC World's coverage and pre-empt regular programming. The London Bombings in July 2005 were one such example. BBC World's American coverage started out sparse, but has expanded within the last decade on several providers throughout the United States, generally alongside BBC America as part of Discovery's retransmission consent negotiations (one previous example is New York City-based Cablevision, which did not carry BBC America until August 2011)

## Outside the U.S.

BBC America is available in Caribbean countries, such as Bermuda on One Communications's cable service, and the World on Wireless service, as well as the Bahamas on REVTV, in Barbados on Flow, in the Cayman Islands on Logic TV, Grenada on Flow, Telbo MiTV in Bonaire, in Curaçao on Flow and on SXM Cable & Data in Sint Maarten. It is also available in the Pacific in the US territory of Guam on DoCoMo Pacific and GTA Teleguam's IPTV service, as well as in the Northern Marianas on DoCoMo Pacific.