Exodus as BBC hits 'outsider' shows target

THE BBC is paying the price of success for meeting targets to buy TV programmes from independent producers. A stream of executives are quitting, lured by the independents.

It is the first time in four years that the BBC has met the target set by the Government for a quarter of TV programmes from the independents. Now it could double the programming it buys in.

Controller Lorraine Heggessey has already left to become chief executive of Talkback Thames, the company behind Pop Idol and Property Ladder. Peter Salmon, the director of sport, is joining the Television Corporation as chief executive at the company behind Channel 4's cricket coverage and Question Time.

Mark Freeland, BBC television comedy commissioner for independent producers, quit to join Hartswood Films, the company that made Men Behaving Badly and Coupling.

New director-general Mark Thompson has said he wants to allow independent producers to compete for up to 50% of programmes. Only 21% of the Corporation's programmes were made by independent producers in 2003, but BBC executives say they comfortably exceeded the 25% quota last year.

The final figure will be revealed by the communications watchdog Ofcom, which is due to report by July.

There is strong resistance in parts of the BBC to externally sourced programmes because of the risk to jobs and the perception that independent producers use the licence fee to make big profits.

But the exodus of top executives to potentially lucrative outside companies is expected to continue. The biggest money-spinning commissions are for drama series, which cost about £1m an hour to make, though more than 80% of the BBC's drama is made in-house.

Former BBC directorgeneral Greg Dyke famously said in 2002 that it was not his job to make independent producers rich.