BBC cannot afford to gamble like HBO

There's no business like showbusiness – and you wonder how the National Audit Office, taking over line-by-line responsibility for trawling through BBC accounts, will fare in an alien world where what's on screen one day and gone tomorrow matters most of all. Great television drama, remember, needs cash as well as care and creativity. Suppose, for instance, that the NAO was examining the new HBO series, Boardwalk Empire , which previewed in America last week. Building a $5m replica Atlantic City, plus hiring Martin Scorsese as director of the first episode: almost $20m on that pilot alone. Worth the subscription? We'll see. But you know where the BBC would find itself in similar circumstances; getting caned for profligacy in a time of constraint, with MPs and auditors jumping up and down on the studio boardwalk.