The ownership structure of Lonely Planet seems to trigger all manner of angst and hand-wringing, especially from the mainstream media in the UK and in particular from the BBC-hating Rupert Murdoch-owned press.
Our article yesterday from Tim Hughes gave a number of recommendations to those at top of Lonely Planet for what they should next given that digital seems to be huge focus.
But what does the BBC have to say about its troublesome (from a corporate perspective) cousin and the continued criticism it receives from other media players?
First of all it continually stresses that it is BBC Worldwide (the corporation's commercial arm) that owns 75% of Lonely Planet, rather than being funded by the UK TV licence fee payer.
NB: The other 25% is owned by the publisher's founders, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, who have decided not to sell their stake in the company, thus prompting the recent coverage as to whether the BBC should sell the company.
The BBC says it does not intend to sell Lonely Planet any time soon, therefore adding more fuel to the antis but perhaps more interestingly - to those that don't actually care about the ownership - it is pressing ahead with plans for more digital integration between the two organisations and other initiatives.
This falls into a number of key areas:
The corporation is keen for Lonely Planet to push its mobile platform projects even further, primarily because the mobile device is the de facto gadget of choice for budget travellers (LP's bread and butter) and all content could and should be available. This would also include developing new mobile services.
BBC has reams of travel programming which it says will soon be available on the Lonely Planet website. A fraction of the 3,000-odd hours have so far been digitised and transferred. One presumes digital video content will be integrated the other way eventually.
In short, the BBC doesn't appear to be wanting to let go of Lonely Planet - despite the protestations of countless other media outlets - and clearly sees it as a strategic asset which, handily, will provide it with digital content and give it another distribution channel.