© Provided by The TelegraphBBC director general Tim Davie
The BBC wants to increase its commercial returns by nearly a third, as income from the licence fee wanes.
The broadcaster plans to boost the amount it makes from commercial operations by 30pc to £1.5bn within five years amid ongoing criticism over its 75-year-old funding model.
The fresh target comes as commercial arm BBC Studios remains on track to meet its current five-year ambition of growing returns by 18pc to £1.2bn for 2021/22.
The BBC has been taking steps to bolster the scope of BBC Studios in order to take pressure off the annual £157.50 TV licence, which suffered a 250,000 drop in take-up to 25.6m last year.
As part of the commercial push, Blue Peter maker BBC Children's Productions will be shifted into BBC Studios from April next year to help compete for commissions.
BBC Studios will also take charge of BBC Global News' commercial activity - although editorial control of the BBC World News channel will be managed by the public service arm.
BBC director general Tim Davie said the commercial operation would become "even more important in the future" as it "enhances value for licence fee payers and boosts the wider creative economy."
The recent appointment of Mr Davie, the former BBC Studios boss, and new chairman Richard Sharp, an ex Goldman Sachs banker, are a signal the BBC would step up its commercial ambitions.
The broadcaster merged BBC Studios, its production arm, and BBC Worldwide, its distribution arm, four years ago to beef up its commercial clout in response to the threat posed by American streaming services such as Netflix.
BBC Studios revenue grew 6pc and earnings 31pc for the two years to 2019/20 following a number of sweeping changes, including the takeover of commercial network UKTV and the international expansion of BritBox, the joint subscription streaming service with ITV.
The update comes after ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall warned that public service broadcasters as we know them could be "killed off" if ministers failed to take action.
She told the Deloitte and Enders Media and Telecoms conference that "left unchecked, the powerful owners of the platforms will be able to dictate terms that can kill off PSBs in their current guise in favour of their own services and other global streamers they've done worldwide deals with."
Britain's public service broadcasters have been pursuing a campaign for new laws to hand them top places on the streaming guides of smart TVs and on-demand devices.
Traditional television regulations hand them the highest spots on channel menus in exchange for making news and public services programmes that tend to attract smaller audiences.
The Telegraph revealed in January that the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 were in talks to build a new service that will aggregate live broadcasts and catch-up programming in one place to prevent them being overwhelmed by US tech giants.
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