BBC One controller won't quit over incident with Queen

The controller of BBC One, Peter Fincham has  said that he won't quit and no-one has asked him to quit over the incident in which a trailer for a forthcoming BBC One documentary, A Year With The Queen, mispresented the photoshoot with Annie Leibovitz. The trouble started when Fincham told journalists at a media launch on Wednesday, of the BBC One autumn schedule, that the trailer showed the Queen "walking out in a huff," from the photoshoot with the celebrity photographer. In fact, the production company, RDF Media, had edited sequences of the documentary to give that impression, when in reality, the clip of the Queen walking off had been filmed prior to the conversation with Leibovitz.

On Thursday the corporation issued an apology, saying that, "The BBC would like to apologise to both the Queen and Annie Leibovitz for any upset this may have caused." Later, the BBC issued a joint statement with RDF Media, saying that it had no idea the clip had been edited out of sequence.

Fincham has now said that "It is a mistake that was made for which, as director of the channel, I take responsibility. If somebody above me - the Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson - comes and says 'you should resign', then I will of course resign."

Meanwhile, the BBC World Service website was still reporting, at the time of writing this article, that the Queen was not happy with the photoshoot session with Annie Leibovitz.