Co pro

James Purnell, the BBC's Director of Strategy and Digital (only in modern Auntie can you be director of an adjective), was out and about yesterday, looking chipper and on message with "Where Next ?" on Steve Hewlett's Media Show and Newsnight.

On the Media Show, he said the cut required to fund additional initiatives was 3%, on top of the existing 20% sought under DQF. Cash, he said, might be found if they could stop paying carriage charges to Sky, and from sales of programmes and formats, like Strictly, Dr Who and "drama".

This week it was confirmed that the BBC deal with Discovery Channels in America is over. Formally agreed in 1998, the arrangement pumped millions of dollars into BBC productions - "Walking with.. ", all the "Planets", "Horizon", most Brian Cox specials. Between 2002 and 2006, a third of BBC factual output had some Discovery funding. Discovery got first look at most BBC ideas, and, though the money is hard to pin down, around $40m a year went to the BBC to make better shows.

Now, spookily, a former head of the BBC's Natural History Unit, Andrew Jackson, is running Discovery - and the partnership is over. Some commentators have said that Discovery thought they weren't getting the best of the deal; others that Discovery wants a different style of programming - reality-style stories like Gold Rush, featuring American characters.

Now BBC Worldwide has to find new investors, or supply its own risk funding - or push for new factual formats. Or the BBC has to make factual programmes more cheaply.

At the same time, Worldwide has sold an interest in the upcoming drama blockbuster War and Peace, to Harvey Weinstein. One might speculate that the production costs are higher than expected, and Worldwide wants to spread the risk. Will drama sales really fund all this good new stuff ?