'Serious doubts' over BBCW's Lonely Planet deal

Lonely Planet titles

• Increase image
• View all images

Edinburgh 08: Some members of the BBC Trust had "serious doubts" about approving BBCW's acquisition of travel publisher Lonely Planet, Time Out chairman Tony Elliott has claimed.

Elliott said he held private conversations with senior members of the Trust who confessed that the £90m deal had worried them.

The deal was approved but is now facing review by the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee as part of a wide ranging enquiry into whether the BBC's commercial activities are distorting the market.

However, the BBC Trust said this afternoon that it is "united in its view" that the Lonely Planet deal was appropriate.

A spokeswoman said that although board members may have aired anxieties, they all signed up to a collective decision.

"Any time there is a big decision, there is a big debate among board members and they reach a collective decision and implement it. Nobody has signed up to a collective decision they didn't agree with," a spokeswoman said.

Elliott, who has in the past held talks of his own with BBCW about the possible sale of a minority stake in the company, also claimed that the BBC Trust took around six months to respond to a request made under the Freedom of Information Act by Penguin for emails pertaining to the Lonely Planet deal.

When the emails did arrive, they were so heavily redacted on the basis of commercial sensitivity that they were "almost meaningless", he added.

Penguin owns rival travel publishers Rough Guides and Dorling Kindersley. Time Out's books are published by Random House, which also owns the majority share in BBC Books.