Quite. If you've ever had dealings with the BBC they don't seem short of cash when it's for star "talent" or management. A different department when it comes to facilities or they want an "expert opinion"; suddenly the production has no budget. Tell them you'll do it for the BBC for free when Graham Norton (and Martha) are contributing for free...
Noticed that, commissioned by the BBC from ITV Productions. BBC have a target for commissioning programmes from outside production companies, this is one of those. What it generally means is that the budget is tight. Practically it's a fixed price deal to deliver 4 x 28 minute shows. Being intended for BBC4 the money is not going to be high, a small budget has to cover 110 hours of new "factual" programmes a year. In the same category is the quirky "expert" wandering around a couple of Georgian houses and raiding the dressing up box. I'm sure there are academic historians and period enthusiasts shouting at the TV for those too. The money is a tiny fraction of what they would need to pay an independent company for period drama, see the recent negotiations reported over Ripper street. Once you've hired Martha, a fee for the producer/director, researcher/assistants, cameraman plus sound recordist and hired their kit for however many days, so many days with editors and dubbing specialists in the edit and the voice over suite, paid for travel, fees for any library footage and other incidentals there's not a left over. That's the slice for the production company; any contingency reserve comes out of it so they make damn sure there's no contingency. Not quite the same as an internal BBC production where although it's tightened over the years, the budget is more of an estimate of what's allocated within the whole department budget rather than a fixed price.
