By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
Not that many years ago the BBC was known outside the UK primarily as a purveyor of international news. Before streaming, there just wasn’t that much awareness in the US, for example, that the BBC is also one of the largest producers of top flight TV series and films.
Ironically, it was a little kid’s show from Australia called Bluey, featuring a young Blue Heeler hound and his family, that changed the BBC from purveyor of news into a hugely popular studio and licensing juggernaut.
Suzy Raia, the SVP for Consumer Products & Business Development in the Americas is responsible for a lot of that change, but she admits that when she started work with BBC Studios in 2018, even her own family weren’t sure what she was doing.
“My parents, when I got this job, they were truly asking, ‘What? Are you a news anchor?’ And you know, I think that’s what’s been really exciting about this company. In the US especially, the BBC has been known for its news brands, but now, we’re so much more. The industry certainly understands the strength of who we’ve become and how we’ve evolved as a business.”
Much of that shift began with Bluey, which Raia says has been a dream brand to work with due to the strength of its writing, and its massive international appeal.
“I think what we’ve proven is that Bluey is resonating with families all over the world,” Raia says. “And that’s rare, you know, because it breaks cultural boundaries. It is beloved because it is so relatable, contemporary and it really showcases for families how we can really have humor and joy in these everyday moments of our lives, and not to overlook them and take them for granted.”
One of the other rare things about Bluey’s success is that BBC Studios has kept its licensing team completely internal, even in the US, where the company’s licensing business was originally quite small by the standards of American studios. But Raia came to the job with almost two decades of experience with Nickelodeon; a job that gave her the unique tools required to grow the Bluey brand as well.
“I was fortunate enough to have a fantastic foundation, because I was with Nickelodeon for 19 years, and you know, what a place to learn and grow as a young exec in the licensing space,” Raia says. “It’s really given me the opportunity to start here fresh. I started at the BBC when we launched in Australia, and so we’re kind of growing up together; the BBC and me.”
When Raia started working on licensing for BBC Studios in the US the team was puny compared to the licensing armies one would see at American studios, which in some cases also might hire licensing agencies to represent particular shows or films.
“Listen, our team started as a little nugget of what we are now,” Raia says. “I think there were three or four of us and now we’ve grown to almost, what, 15 In the US alone? And that’s just overseeing North America and LatAm (Latin America).
“I don’t know what the numbers are from a staff perspective across the world, but we now have teams in Asia, Australia – of course overseeing Australia and New Zealand – and then in Europe and out of the UK,” Raia adds, before taking on a sinister supervillain voice: “And so our eyes are, you know, set on GLOBAL DOMINATION,” she laughs.
One thing that Raia sees as an advantage, but that keeps her team working incredibly hard, is the fact the BBC’s licensing of Bluey and now Doctor Who is completely internal.
“I look like I’m smiling, but trust me, I’m sweating through it!” Raia says. “We’ve had to grow really quickly due to the huge success of Bluey, but there are a lot of reasons that keeping it internal can be very good for the brand.
“I mean, we always know what we want to focus on, and Bluey is one of the two true priorities from a consumer products and licensing perspective for the BBC,” Raia explains. “Also, I work for a company that is massively supportive, and gives us all the resources we need for this endeavor into global domination and success, and that has really been something that sets us apart from other studios.
“We also put our brand values first and foremost, and we’ll never put our brand reputation at risk. For example, all licensing is done within the scope of sustainability, within the scope of ensuring that we are following our healthy food policies, so we’re providing good balance to our audiences and our kids. We also know that we’re beholden to the British public and their tax dollars, and so those are all really important components that we value as we look at our partnerships and as we grow this business.”
Brand integrity is one thing, but Raia says the ability of an internal team to focus exclusively on one property is also important, which has helped Bluey expand so quickly as an evergreen licensing property. Raia says there are many times when hiring a licensing agency is the right thing to do, but in the case of Bluey and now the Doctor Who consumer products program, she feels that staying with an internal BBC team was the right thing to do.
“You know, the licensing business can be tricky, there’s lots of different properties, and agents can be phenomenal routes to market and I certainly would never diminish the work that they do,” Raia says. “But the flip side is that, oftentimes they’re running a portfolio, and they have different priorities, of course, as they should.
“In our case we feel having something in house gives us the leverage to talk to our creators, to talk to our production teams, to get the right resources in place, and that just gives us a lot more control over what we want to do, how we want to do it, and when we want to do it.”
Also at Expo this year I spoke to Claire Gilchrist at Hasbro about her company’s decision to focus on eight primary brands, and that type of focus is something that Raia says was key to BBC Studio’s success.
They started with Bluey, recognizing the show’s exquisite writing and global appeal would allow for success in a wide variety of categories, even though the BBC does boast a wide variety of other successful programs.
Now, that same focus is being applied to the long-running British mega-hit Doctor Who, which has been aired on the BBC for 26 seasons, starting in 1963. I’m pretty sure the only thing at Licensing Expo that’s older than Doctor Who was, sadly, me. It is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest running sci fi series in the world, and the most successful sci fi series of all time, based on overall ratings.
In recent years, since 2005, Doctor Who has been revived and appears to be more successful than ever as it was popularized once more by British star David Tennant.
The show follows the adventures of a rogue, alien ‘Time Lord’ that takes on the persona of a human being, and as a result, many different actors have played the title character. Most recently the actor Jodie Whittaker became the first woman to play the role starting in 2017, but in the upcoming season the star of Sex Education, Ncuti Gatwa, will take on the role of Doctor Who, while Tennant will be returning in an as yet unexplained supporting role.
The venerable show’s runaway success since Tennant brought back the role in 2005 has now made it the BBC Studios’ second major area of focus for licensing as well, meaning Raia’s team is about to get a lot busier.
“This is just the biggest news of the hour, quite honestly,” Raia says. “It’s the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who, which is just insane, and yet it’s experiencing this massive regeneration over and over again that breeds an exciting new life for the show.
“I mean, Disney, who have been the most phenomenal partners for us with Bluey, are now on board with Doctor Who as well, so we feel we have found a match made in heaven between the BBC and Disney that will propel our program forward in the Americas.”
Raia points out that the BBC’s licensing team has learned a massive amount about successful programs through their work with Bluey, which also involved a very successful partnership with Disney. She believes the program for Doctor Who will be equally successful.
“I think strategically from a PR perspective, between Disney and our teams, they have done such an amazing job of bringing back this classic audience that was in love with David Tennant and (showrunner) Russell T Davies,” Raia says. “And all the things that made Doctor Who exactly what it is, plus bringing in contemporary new talent that brings new audiences in like (RuPaul’s Drag Race winner) Jinkx Monsoon. We made that announcement and my phone was like ‘buzz buzz buzz’, blowing up!”
“It’s like marrying the magic that made it happen in the first place with these two (Monsoon and Gatwa) who are contemporary and new to keep it really fresh, so it feels like a really winning combination. I am so excited! it’s a good place to be, a really good place.”
Asked what her team’s biggest challenge is these days, Raia thought for a second, and then said, “We literally have no chairs left at our booth, there’s just too many people coming, so I never get to sit down. We need a bigger booth next year!”
Sounds like a good problem to have.
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