Investment by BBC Wales in the ratings winner Doctor Who continues to grow, with a new dedicated centre bringing production for the first time under one roof, near Cardiff. Referencing ancient links between the Principality and King Arthur, Doctor Who production staff have taken to calling their palatial new headquarters “Camelot.”

  BBC America is bringing four new dramas to the network in co-production with BBC Drama and UK indies Tiger Aspect, Shed Productions and Hartswood Films.

Comedian Jennifer Saunders and child psychology expert Dr Tanya Byron are teaming up  to collaborate on a new comedy series, one of a raft of pilots ordered by BBC1 controller Peter Fincham. The Vivienne Vyle Show is a spoof on the kind of parenting therapy shows fronted by Byron, who presents BBC3 series Little Angels and The House Of Tiny Tearaways. Saunders plays fictional therapist Vyl…

The BBC is set to lay off almost 2,000 staff over the next 12 months, as it gears up for the second year of director general Mark Thompson's cost-cutting programme. The corporation is currently 50 jobs short of reaching this year's target of shedding 1,045 staff, according to broadcasting union Bectu, after a combination of outsourcing and voluntary redundancy.

The BBC is set to screen this summer's football World Cup and Wimbledon championships in High-definition television. Trial run of the service will include the BBC's share of World Cup matches and key Wimbledon matches in June. The BBC is trialing HDTV for a year, starting in mid-May.

Thirteen years after Director-General John Birt brought the internal market system into the BBC, calling it Producer Choice, it looks as though Mark Thompson the present DG has called time on it, according to reports in Ariel, the BBC in-house journal.

BBC Wales has invested £500,000 in tapeless workflow technology for post-production work. The Cardiff-based regional BBC production centre has made huge impact on the corporation's drama outpact, with top audience ratings for the recent Doctor Who series, very shortly to go out on US cable and with further series in the pipeline.

The BBC's plan to open a new state-of-the-art broadcasting centre for the North in Manchester may depend on the settlement of the licence fee. Ministers are now discussing how much the BBC can charge in future for the licence fee. A decision on this is expected in June or July.

Media Secretary Tessa Jowell has published the government's long-awaited BBC white paper, laying down new rules to ensure the corporation will "justify the privilege of the licence fee". The white paper lays down the way the BBC should operate in future and paves the way for the detailed BBC licence fee negiotiations.

The BBC plans to allow viewers to effectively create their own schedule by logging on to watch at their convenience - on broadband. In the BBC's most dramatic experiment in on-line programming, a trial of virtually all BBC2's content may be be provided via broadband.

  The BBC is narrowing its shortlist for its new Manchester centre, where it plans to relocate key departments from London to Greater Manchester in five years time.