BBC Worldwide, the BBC’s profit-making commercial wing, is being barred from doing any mergers or acquisitions unless in “exceptional circumstances”, after its £89 million acquisition of three quarters of travel publisher Lonely Planet ruffled commercial rivals’ feathers.

Concluding an 18-month review in to BBCWW, the regulating BBC Trust says it “would not expect to consider a commercial deal of the scale and nature of the Lonely Planet acquisition in future”. The trust said this, and the addition of ads to an overseas BBC.com, had “led to considerable press and public scrutiny and controversy”.

BBCWW has big online plans for Lonely Planet, including opening up its travel guides via API and syndication. But LP is now on a leash - the trust says it “will want to ensure that BBC Worldwide’s plans for Lonely Planet secure the best value for licence fee payers and will keep its long-term future under review”.

New guidelines mean the old £50 million threshold at which proposed M&A was referred to for the trust’s scrutiny is being reduced to £30 million.

The trust is refocusing Worldwide on international commercial exploitation of the BBC’s own intellectual property, encouraging the “divestment of stakes in non-BBC branded international channels over time where it makes commercial sense”. Whether “channels” means “TV channels” or “distribution channels” isn’t clear.

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