19.01.03
Bumper
Christmas for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Worldwide as The Office breaks all records
'The
Office', 'I'm Alan Partridge', 'Delia's Vegetarian Collection',
'Life of Mammals', 'Fimbles', 'Tweenies', and 'I'm Sorry I Haven't
A Clue' - as well as classics like 'Only Fools and Horses' - were
among ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Worldwide's top-sellers for Christmas 2002.
Over
5.3 million videos, books and audio products were purchased in the
October to December shopping period linked to major brands and authors
including David Attenborough, Rick Stein, History of Britain, Harry
Potter, Gary Rhodes, Red Dwarf, The League of Gentlemen, Dead Ringers
and The Goon Show.
Revenue
from sales of our adult books, videos and audio products in just
three months in the run up to Christmas were up by a year on year
rise of 10 per cent.
Chief Executive Rupert Gavin said: "The terrific range of our
talent has resulted in a superb Christmas trading period for us.
The cross-format success of 'The Office' is particularly stunning,
surpassing even our own high expectations."
Sales
of 'The Office' on DVD and VHS were phenomenal with a total of one
million units being snapped up across the two formats since its
release on 14 October - 630,000 on DVD and 370,000 on VHS. In addition
to being the fastest selling non-film DVD, it is also now the first
non-film DVD to pass the half million unit sales mark. The combined
VHS and DVD sales make it is the best-selling TV title in the UK
ever (CIN).
The
top five best-selling ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ DVDs were all comedy titles. 'The Office'
was followed by 'I'm Alan Partridge', 'Red Dwarf: Series 1', 'The
League of Gentlemen Christmas Special' and 'Only Fools and Horses
- If They Could See Us Now' 2001 Christmas Special.
'Delia's
Vegetarian Collection' was ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Worldwide's top selling book in October
to December - 200,000 copies sold - a remarkable figure for a standalone
cookery book not tied into a TV series. Another cookery title, Rick
Stein's 'Food Heroes', was in the top five with 87,000 copies.
David
Attenborough titles were extremely popular choices for Christmas.
The latest two books sold 214,000 copies: 115,000 of his 'Life on
Air' memoirs, and 99,000 'Life of Mammals' hardbacks. 32,000 videos
of the 'Life of Mammals' series were also sold in the last three
months of the year.
In
the week before Christmas, ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ books occupied the number one positions
for Autobiography with 'Life on Air'; History with 'History of Britain
Vol. 3'; Cinema and TV with 'The Office - The Scripts'; Gardening
with 'How to Be a Gardener'; Natural History with 'Life of Mammals'
and we took three of the top five positions for Food and Drink with
Delia, Rick Stein and Gary Rhodes. (Neilsen BookScan).
Audio
tapes and CDs were a great favourite too. Eight out of the ten top-selling
titles in the UK were from ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Worldwide (Booktrack) in December.
'I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue Anniversary Special' was in the number
one slot followed by Michael Palin's 'Sahara', 'Goon Show Volume
20' and 'Dead Ringers Series 5 & 6'. Also in the top ten were
the complete and unabridged readings by Stephen Fry of 'Harry Potter
and the Chamber of Secrets' and 'Harry Potter and The Prisoner of
Azkaban'* as well as the radio comedy classic 'Round the Horne No.14'.
There
were delighted squeals on Christmas morning as children unwrapped
the videos of their favourite characters; more than half a million
Tweenies and Fimbles titles were bought. The latest releases - 'Get
the Fimbling Feeling' and 'Let's Find the Fimbles' totalling 291,000
sales; while 205,000 'Tweenies Live! The Christmas Present' and
'Tweenies: Everybody Panto' were bought for youngsters. Fimbles
and Tweenies were ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Worldwide's most successful pre-school properties.
ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½
Worldwide's live events business had continuing success with 'The
Tweenies Live! The Christmas Present' show which returned to entertain
over 100,000 fans in Cardiff, Wembley and Manchester. And the twelve
date 'Fame Academy' National UK Arena Tour sold more than 50,000
tickets during the Christmas period, with additional shows due to
be added shortly.
* Published under licence from Helen Nicoll.
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