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 | | Wednesday, 6 March, 2002, 14:59 GMT Bob the Builder peps up Hit profits  Bob and friends and popular worldwide Bob the Builder has fixed it for the UK company which owns the children's TV character, bringing Hit Entertainment a massive rise in profits. Bob - whose "can he fix it" catchphrase is known to millions of pre-school children worldwide - helped push up profits at Hit by 400% over the last six months to the end of January. Hit, which also owns the rights to Barney the Dinosaur, said it now expects to see pre-tax profits for the 12 months to 31 July of around �25m ($35.5m). Altogether, more than two million videos of the animated handyman have been sold in the US alone, and the character has made more than �100m in merchandise sales in the UK on the back of his BBC series, as well as twice topping the British pop charts. Soaring penguin Hit now plans to launch its penguin Pingu onto worldwide TV screens in 2003.
Despite this, the chirpy character still generates $4m in annual revenues. Hit also plans a debut to Rubbadubbers - a group of bath-time characters from the team behind Bob the Builder. The group said turnover for the six months to 31 January rose to �58.9m ($83.75m) from �12.6m ($17.96m), while pre-tax profits jumped to �11.2m from �3.1m. The increase reflected strong sales of Bob the Builder videos such as The Big Game and A Christmas To Remember, as well as Bob books and magazines. London-based Hit said it believed the Bob brand - which saw very strong sales in the US and also did well in the UK - had the ability to sustain significant growth over many years. | | See also:  Internet links: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Top Business stories now:  Links to more Business stories are at the foot of the page. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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