Thin wedge

The BBC Trust is winding up for its biennial review of the WoCC (which is not something you fwo at a wabbit). It is the Window of Creative Competition, a competition which the BBC is "losing". 50% of BBC tv output (outside of news)  is guaranteed to BBC production teams; 25% must go to independent production companies, and both sides battle for the remaining 25%.  If you'll bear with me, latest figures show the indies taking 83% of that battle ground.

By now, waistcoated Assistant Heads of Governance have ferried Terms of Engagement on the Marmaduke Hussey Crusted Cushion of Inquiry to a Chosen Accountancy firm, and The Data of Percentages is being assembled - by asking the BBC and typing down the answers.

A useful list has also appeared, in response to a Freedom of Information Inquiry - a list of BBC trading companies.  So, as the indies circle George Entwistle's BBC and in-house production, we can be reminded that one wing of the BBC is essentially, for the time being, an indie.

BBC Worldwide owns 25% of Nira Park and Kenton Allen's Big Talk Productions (latest commission - a Mitchell and Webb series for BBC2 starting in 2013).  BBC Worldwide owns 12% (down from 25% in August) of Left Bank Pictures, which made the Branagh take on Wallander, and the Italian cop series Zen. BBC Worldwide, through a holding company called Mini Milk, owns a 25% slice of Plain Vanilla, Dominic Minghella's drama production company, which brought you Robin Hood and now brings Doc Martin to ITV. Complicated, huh ?