BBC Worldwide that Channel 4 merge with either the commercial network Five or BBC Worldwide. Channel 4's preferred option of a partnership with the latter was confirmed by chief executive Andy Duncan, who added: "We're in discussions with BBC Worldwide at the moment and they're really very exciting." In the same year, the company was awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise in recognition of the companies growth and success. In 2012, the company began to reorganise their divisions from a product based system to a location-based system, resulting in Jana Bennett leaving the company. BBC Worldwide sold Lonely Planet in 2013 to
BBC World News and operated by BBC Global News Ltd., part of the BBC's commercial group of companies, and is funded by subscription and advertising revenues, and not by the United Kingdom television licence. It is not owned by BBC Studios. The channel originally started as BBC World Service Television and was a commercial operation. The British government refused to fund to the new television service using grant-in-aid. (BBC World Service radio was funded by a grant-in-aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office until 2014.) The channel started broadcasting on 11 March 1991, after two weeks of real-time pilots, initially as a half-hour