The British BBC has decided to sell the Lonely Planet travel guides to an American group, and at a much lower price—reduced by almost 80 million pounds— from the one he had bought the publishing company from.

American NC2 Media will acquire the drivers for 51,5 million pounds from BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of British public television. The acquisition of Lonely Planet by the BBC was done in two phases, the 2007 and 2011 and had cost in total 130,2 million pounds.

The BBC Trust, the BBC's watchdog, said that this buying and selling should become a lesson for the "significant financial losses" it caused.

BBC Worldwide's purchase of Lonely Planet was criticized at the time as falling short of the core aims of public broadcasting. Until then BBC Worldwide was limited to exploiting domestic television producers.

The Lonely Planet Company, which is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, concerns 400 workers. It also has offices in London, California and New Delhi. The company's financial performance has deteriorated in recent years due to the appreciation of the Australian dollar, of the reorganizations in the publishing area and the global recession that affected tourism, notes the BBC in its announcement.

“The BBC will not make such acquisitions in the future.", BBC Trust vice-chairman Diane Coyle assured, stressing that Lonely Planet did not turn out to be a good investment.