Bluey, Baby Reindeer, BritBox and BBC News Tom Fussell and his team have a collection of popular and venerable brands to work with.

The CEO leads BBC Commercial, an arm of the U.K. public broadcaster, which reported its fiscal-year results on Tuesday. That included record revenue, driven by animated familyhit showBluey. Fussell has set ambitious growth goals, acquiring production banners in various countries, buying full control of streamer BritBox, and targeting to double the business 2021/2022 revenue and profit by 2027/2028. After Tuesdays financial update, Fussell talked to The Hollywood Reporter about key growth drivers, challenges, the success his business has had on YouTube, Bluey, and the future of Doctor Who.

Congratulations on the record overall annual revenue and the revenue growth at BritBox International. Can you share if that is driven by subscriber gains, new market launches, price increases or anything else?

Weve delivered record revenues. Were really proud of that performance. But crucially, our strategy is really working. These strategic investments, like the one into BritBox International, which Ill come to, are really paying dividends for us. BritBoxs revenues are up 20 percent. On [channels business] UKTV, weve done a rebrand and invested in their content, and it has seen a 56 million viewer hours increase year on year on its VOD service, doing fantastically well. BBC.com has been re-platformed outside of this country, and the BBC app and the pay model have been launched. And so I can see these strategic investments really beginning to pay off, and we continue within all of that to flourish creatively.

We won 151 awards, with Conclave, of course, famously doing 21 of them and winning an Oscar. Then, Baby Reindeer were having 250 million views for the show. In terms of BritBox itself, its a combination. Subscribers are growing ahead of where we wanted them to be. There has been a price rise, and their content investment is working really, really well, whether its Ludwig, whether its Blue Lights, or more recently, in this fiscal year, Death Valley and Outrageous are doing fantastically well for BritBox. So its ahead of plan, ahead of where we wanted it to be, with our really clear strategy paying off there for BritBox.

Any update on BritBox Internationals subscriber numbers?

We will update on subscribers when we think that we have hit a next milestone. The crucial thing is that its not as focused on the subscribers now. We understand it is a really much-loved specialist service in North America. And it is absolutely vital for the creative economy in the U.K. Without BritBox, some of these shows do not get funded. So, were looking at the whole quality of everything that BritBox does. And you can see the marketing team and the content team giving subscribers exactly what they want.

BritBox does indeed seem to often be the final and key piece of financing that helps get U.K. projects over the line

If a scripted business has a show from the BBC or ITV, its very likely theyll need BritBox to come in if its for that sort of show. Theres a sweet spot that BritBox operates in, and you can see it has the best of the BBC and ITV, and it needs those shows. These are brilliant shows in the U.K., but theyre doing so well in the States. Amazon Prime Video Channels in the States has got a rail with its top 10. They have the big shows that youll want to see in that top 10, with massive budgets of $10 million-$20 million an hour. Weve been in the top 5 regularly, most recently with Death Valley and Outrageous, really outgunning some of the shows with bigger budgets. So its a crucial part of the funding system for public service broadcasters at the moment, and its fantastic that its doing so well commercially andfor us.

You recently introduced a paywall on BBC.com for news in the U.S. Why does that make sense and why now?

It is either the first or second most trusted news brand in the States, and it is the largest English-language news website in the world. So we have the right to play in the market. And in the U.S., it is the norm for there to be a dynamic pay model, so that heavier users will be given the option of paying. And we think its a compelling consumer proposition to pay $8.99 a month. Theres an annual plan as well. For that, you get the best of the BBC News, which is fantastic. On top of that, you get the documentary service BBC Select, and you get the best podcasts from the BBC. Its a compelling proposition for users in the States. Its a good commercial opportunity that we have looked at and spent some time looking at and investing in.

Any sense of the success so far?

Were in around two weeks, but we are where we wanted to be with this soft launch.

Bluey keeps going and going

Bluey now has 450 licenses around the world. Weve invested in funding the Bluey movie ourselves. These are long-term investments. We are bringing new talent into our studio that is, again, a long-term play. All of that is flourishing.

Last year, you talked about the commissioning market softness. How has that developed?

Im, by nature, a glass-overflowing type of optimist. But even I would say this has been a challenging market, and it continues to be challenging. When I look at the economic environment that we operate in, advertising in the U.K. is under pressure because of the growth in the U.K. We are the biggest exporter of British programming around the world. But the sterling is very strong. That gives us a headwind. And then you can see we have huge amounts of consumer products around the world, and the barriers to trade are increasing, so that causes us problems within the commissioning system.

Its incredible to see around the U.K. scripted labels repositioning their slates to maybe this 1 million-3 million pounds ($1.3 million-$4.0 million) per hour level, which is probably what we need to work within in order to get shows greenlit by public service broadcasters. So those labels can own their IP, they can export them around the world, and they can carry on monetizing those. BritBox is the key route to market in the States for us.

You can see that big budgets are continually getting commissioned from production companies in the U.K. The U.K. produced, I think, four out of the top 10 on Netflix last year. And Baby Reindeer was one of those. So were proud, very proud, that we are regularly the producer of choice and studio of choice for the streamers.

Are there any new growth areas and opportunities for BBC Studios and BBC Commercial that people may not quite be aware of that youd like to highlight?

Evan Shapiro recently talked about the success that BBC Studios was having almost uniquely on YouTube. Bluey now has 21 million subscribers, and were seeing a lot of really healthy consumption growth on YouTube throughout our estate. I think this is an area that youre going to see growing more and more over time. We are seeing considerable growth on YouTube. Its 854 million hours viewed in the year to the end of March the 31st that is considerably more than the peer. It was investment that needed to be done and that is paying off.

We have a really strong partnership. We are an organization that partners very well naturally, be it with Disney, be it with YouTube. And YouTube is a partner at the highest level. We have got a very good relationship. And they can see how successful BBC Studios is and amplify brands, whether its BBC Earth, whether its Dancing With the Stars, whether its Bluey.

Doctor Who is such a big brand but has been struggling as of late. Any thoughts?

Were really committed to Doctor Who. We really want to carry on looking at ways for fans to interact with the brand. We look after the brand, whether its at Comic Con, merchandising, or whether its the distribution deal weve done. The BBC and Disney havent made a decision yet. When they do, theyll announce it. Theres no point me speculating on it. But Doctor Who is a much-loved brand by everyone in BBC Studios, and we love being part of that stort.