The Wyatt Report raises some damning issues. For my money, these are the three shockers:

1. The Palace being allowed sneak preview access by RDF – effectively giving participants the opportunity to exert editorial control. If that’s how the Queen’s Castle got made, we should know.

…at the end of June RDF had shown the Buckingham Palace press office one whole programme from the series, half of another programme, including the Annie Leibovitz shoot, and some other edited sequences. The BBC knew nothing about these viewings.

Wyatt makes a good recommendation on this point, but not before revealing that – deep breaths licence-fee payers – the BBC has a Royal Liaison Officer.

2. Stephen Lambert’s role. First his deliberate re-edit of the material:

This tape was compiled in the absence of the director/cameraman. The assembly was shown to RDF’s Chief Creative Officer [Lambert] who made several changes, one of which was to alter the order of the four shots from the sequence showing Annie Leibovitz photographing the Queen. The Chief Creative Officer knew that in doing this, the sequence shown in the rushes tape was being changed.

And then, if you take Fincham’s account (which Wyatt seems to), not owning up:

RDF [Lambert] waited almost twenty-four hours before admitting what they knew to be the case – that the the mis-edited sequence had its origin in the MIP tape, edited by them…

Cynical stuff.

3. The BBC exec producer (EP)’s role. How about sending this email to your boss?

Sequences in the can include HMQ provoked into a huge fit of pique by photographer Annie Leibovitz and storming out of room…

No wonder Fincham was under the impression that the promo tape showed the Queen storming out. The creative boss of the production company had edited it to give that impression and his own EP had told him that’s what happened. When the RDF EP was copied in he didn’t correct that impression either.

So, BBC1 Channel controller Peter Fincham has taken a bullet and resigned, as has Lambert.

But to my mind Fincham’s resignation is a distraction from the biggest question, which is how you manage editorial compliance. Having two EPs is a waste of time and money. Either save the cash, and embed the compliance responsibilities in the indie contract, or else place the BBC EP in the production process with no duplication of roles.

And when you have a moment, ask yourself exactly how many people not doing very much were involved in this cock-up?

It took one person to direct and shoot the material and countless more to turn the results into the mess we see today.

When the BBC is looking to make cuts it might want to take a good look at the Wyatt Report and ask what exactly it is paying for, and how it might achieve more and better for less.