[DTV]

Commercially-funded broadcasting is produced on a fraction of the cost.

For those of us who aren't up on things like this, how does that work exactly?

Surely "broadcasting" in this sense is a relatively fixed cost that doesn't matter whether its done by the BBC, ITV Studios, Endemol or Lord Lucan?  How can it be it is cheaper on the commercial side than at the BBC?

I assume it refers to the programming budget, but even then ITV's programming budget is roughly 75-80% of that of comparable BBC channels, which, while lower, ITV is not as constrained as the BBC is with regards to original programming quotas. Like-for-like there's not much difference in it.