IT’S been a long journey for Tony and Maureen Wheeler. The husband-and-wife team began their publishing venture in 1973 when they produced a book about a trek to the Far East called Across Asia on the Cheap.

Those humble beginnings led to the creation of an A$120m (£52m) travel-guide empire. Their progress from backpacking explorers to Melbourne-based publishing tycoons reached its destination last Monday when the couple announced a deal to sell a 75% stake in their business, Lonely Planet, to the BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide. The sale valued their company at about £100m.

Maureen Wheeler declared that the couple were delighted with the outcome, after looking for a new investor for 18 months. “The chemistry with the BBC was really right,” she said.

But while the deal sets up the Wheelers for a comfortable retirement, it has also raised fresh questions about the BBC and the scope of its commercial activities. Just how far should it be allowed to go to generate money from sources other than the licence fee?

BBC Worldwide has a fairly extensive remit, and is responsible for all the BBC’s commercial activities. That stretches from publishing magazines, such as Top Gear and the Radio Times, to running advertising-funded overseas channels including BBC America and BBC Prime.

Its most lucrative operation is the “Global TV Sales” division that sells BBC programmes, such as Dr Who and Planet Earth, to foreign broadcasters. It also develops formats of BBC productions for foreign markets, such as Dancing with the Stars, the international version of Strictly Come Dancing.

In total, BBC Worldwide makes profits before interest and tax of £111m on sales of £810m. It is also a rapidly growing operation, with profits trebling since 2004. But to continue in the same vein, the business needs to find fresh content – hence the move on Lonely Planet.

John Smith, chief executive of BBC Worldwide, thinks that there are obvious synergies between the two and sees scope for cooperation on online projects, a magazine and themed television shows.

Not everybody has been as enthusiastic. The day the Lonely Planet purchase was announced, John Whittingdale, the Conservative MP and chairman of the culture, media and sport committee, remarked: “Why should the BBC effectively nationalise a pub-lisher? Where do its commercial activities stop?”

The sale has also left some of the corporation’s commercial rivals perplexed. A source at a rival terrestrial broadcaster said: “I can see the Beeb developing travel guides based on its Holiday programme, but buying Lonely Planet to generate content seems to be the wrong way round.”

The argument for allowing the BBC to pursue such a commercial agenda is that it reduces the burden on the licence-fee payer to fund the BBC’s output. But the question is where the line should be drawn.

Some observers have compared the purchase of Lonely Planet with the situation three years ago when a review of the BBC by director-general Mark Thompson identified a number of areas that should be deemed noncore to the public-service broadcaster.

Among these was Eve, a top-selling women’s magazine. It was gleefully snapped up by Haymarket, the publishing business owned by Lord Heseltine. The question now being asked is whether purchasing Lonely Planet, which is not affiliated to any BBC programme, represents a rather obvious u-turn.

Smith sees it differently, having laid out a strategy at the start of the year for the business to go out and invest in new content.

“At the time of that review, there was quite a bit of concern and it was seen as wrong for Worldwide to produce a magazine that had no relation to BBC output in the UK at all,” he said, stressing that the rules were redrawn specifically to cover magazine publishing.

Magazines could only be produced in areas where the BBC had a recognised strength or for specific programmes. These guidelines applied only to Britain. “There is broad support for Worldwide to boost its activities outside the UK to increase the amount of money returned to the BBC,” he said.

Smith argues that the genie is already out of the bottle as far as developing a business that is not dependent on BBC output. He said, for example, that 40% of the television programmes it distributed around the globe were shows that did not come from the BBC.

He also points out that his organisation does not have automatic call on BBC programmes and has to bid against rival distributors for the rights. “Those who think our job is just to sell BBC programmes have been wrong about that for many years,” he said.

Besides, said Smith, if his division was expected to grow its bottom line by relying solely on the output of the BBC, it would not be able to do so terribly quickly. “There is a strategic desire to grow Worldwide outside the UK. You can’t have it both ways.”

Smith does not shirk controversy. Another of his plans is to place adverts on the BBC’s web-site for those who view it from outside Britain. That move is being considered by the BBC Trust, and a decision could be taken at a meeting this month.

While rivals and politicians may decry the purchase of Lonely Planet, the move has some high-profile supporters.

Gavyn Davies, who chaired the BBC between 2001 and 2004, said: “Provided the financing of Worldwide is entirely separate from the public broadcaster, and provided that fair trading requirements are met, I think that Worldwide should be encouraged to be entrepreneur-ial, even if its business activities are not all directly connected to BBC programming.”

BBC Worldwide has £350m available to spend on deals so critics ought to start getting used to these sorts of purchases. That money comes in the form of a loan from a syndicate of high-street banks. If ever BBC Worldwide should default on repayments, the banks also have no recourse to the commercial arm’s parent.

“It is very much in our minds to get more involved in TV production in other parts of the world,” Smith said.

As he starts scouring the globe for his next deal, the Lonely Planet may come in handy.

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