The row between independent producers and the BBC gathered pace on Sunday when a senior media executive accused the publicly funded broadcaster of using its financial might to distort the market for programmes and corporate acquisitions.

Speaking at the Edinburgh television festival, Alex Graham, chief executive of the programme-maker Wall to Wall and former head of Pact, the independent producers’ association, said the BBC was in danger of incurring “its own little cultural version of sub-prime lending” because of the unfettered activities of its commercial arm.