Money news! Thanks to big name brands like Doctor Who, Top Gear and Strictly Come Dancing BBC Worldwide has reported an 8% rise in headline profit to £155 million for the financial year 2011/2012! Hurrah for Money!

Digital Spy reports that Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, yesterday announced a pre-tax increase of 13% on a like-for-like basis to £104m, after Worldwide increased its headlines sales by 5% to £1,085m in the 12 months to March 31, 2012 – the fourth successive year that sales have topped ONE BILLION DOLLARS!

This figure excludes the total £121m earned by Worldwide in the sale and licensing deals for its BBC Magazines division, agreed last year in case you were worried.

The five core BBC brands – Top Gear, Doctor Who, Lonely Planet, Dancing with the Stars (the international version of Strictly Come Dancing) and BBC Earth – accounted for 30% of Worldwide’s headline sales.

The upside of all these profits is that Worldwide’s contributions to the BBC overall return grew by 19% to a record £216m – a welcome relief to the mainly licence-fee funded corporation currently undergoing spending cuts.

John Smith, the chief executive of BBC Worldwide, commented:

“These results have enabled BBC Worldwide to return £216m to the BBC, supporting development of world-class, original content in the context of a tighter licence fee.

BBC Worldwide also distributed programmes and formats produced by more than 200 UK independent producers in the year. I am proud of the unique role we play in helping our sectors of the UK creative industries to expand through exports.”

Mark Thompson, the outgoing BBC director general and chairman of BBC Worldwide, was ‘proud’ of the commercial arms contributions to Britain’s creative industries.