The company, which makes money from BBC programmes by selling the rights to other broadcasters overseas, has grown into one of britain’s biggest media businesses under his leadership, delivering £155 million of profits on £1.1 billion of revenues last year. John Smith is understood to have wanted Worldwide to be privatised so that he could run it in a shamelessly commercial manner. Tim Davie, who cut his teeth at PepsiCo before joining the BBC in 2005, had been widely tipped to succeed Smith.