BBC expenses: details here: "
Which will be the eyecatching, or even extravagant, BBC expenses claims? Follow them here – and pitch in yourself
2.40pm update: Dominic Coles, the chief operating officer of journalism, claimed £27.20 to cover his mileage costs to watch motor racing on 21 June, giving as his reason: 'British GP – Bernie et al'.
He also claimed for a £5.60 tube ride to see Hugh Robertson, the Tory MP for Faversham and Mid Kent, on 14 July.
Peter Horrocks, the director of the World Service, put in a claim for £3.00 for a 'charge on cash withdrawal' on 24 May, adding as his reason '3.00 buy back guarantee'.
Richard Sambrook, the BBC's director of global news, filed a £16.95 claim for internet access to the BBC's internal site on 29 June.
He also spent £10 each way on taxis when he visited the Guardian's editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger on 9 July.
2pm update: To the BBC's department of audio and music, or radio, as you might know it better.
The BBC Radio 3 controller, Roger Wright, racked up a huge number of taxi fares – more than 100 – in fact, many of them travelling between Broadcasting House and the Royal Albert Hall for the Proms.
Wright also had 18 minicab trips in the three months, including nine for more than £100 each. Away from travel, Wright also claimed £470.87 on a lunch entertaining Radio 3 talent, and £655. 20 'external hospitality' on a supper after the first night of the Proms.
The BBC Radio 4 controller, Mark Damazer, spent £290 to say thanks to the production team behind the station's 90-part series on American history, plus another £51.98 to discuss 'issues' on the Today programme.
The BBC Radio 1 controller, Andy Parfitt, claimed £273 for three successive monthly team meetings, and £509 on 'internal entertainment' at the annual Sony Radio Academy Awards.
Bob Shennan, the controller of BBC Radio 5 Live, spent £284.35 on a business lunch for five people, and £193 for another business lunch for four.
1.15pm: The total claimed by the BBC's 107 senior staff between July and September was £188,284.98, up from £174,650.42 the previous quarter.
Total spent on taxis and hospitality was down, but there was a big increase in the amount claimed for flights and a smaller increase in hotel expenditure. The BBC attributed this to the cost of flights to the annual LA screenings. The new figures also include travel to the annual MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, which took place at the end of August.
Overall, expenditure on taxis was £39,029.72, down from £46,110.25 the previous month.
Hospitality spending was £23,642.21, down from £30,314.87.
Flights cost a total of £70,870.96, up from £50,375, while hotel expenditure was £18,517.60, up from £16,678.34.
The average amount claimed per executive was £1,759.67, an average of £586.56 per month, according to BBC figures.
1.05pm update: Danny Cohen, BBC3 controller, claimed £1,555.10 for six night stay at Sunset Marquis hotel, Los Angeles, in May during LA Screenings, of which £173.10 was for meals. During the same trip he also claimed £7.61 for buying the New York Times for 'research info on US pilots' and £4.12 for 'business calls' from the hotel.
Cohen also claimed £250.83 over the three month period for 'business-related calls and texts' on his personal mobile.
1pm update: Director of vision Jana Bennett's minicab expenses have been eclipsed by the BBC's director, future media and technology Erik Huggers.
Huggers claimed around £4,750 on cabs in the three month period, including one for £538.45 on 11 June last year, with another for £627.37 the following day. Presumably the return trip.
Elsewhere, Huggers's list of expenses appears to include £7,514.80 for a flight between Seoul and London Heathrow.
The BBC's chief operating officer Caroline Thomson also took a lot of minicabs – more than 90 of them, the most expensive of which was for £89.16 on 24 September last year.
BBC North director Peter Salmon, who is in charge of overseeing the BBC's new Salford HQ, claimed £3,787.80 for a return flight to San Francisco on 5 July. Not surprisingly, his expenses also include quite a few train tickets between London and Manchester.
Salmon's list of expenses are also show the lengths to which management are keen to explain why they incurred a particular cost. Take this £61.50 train ticket, which comes with the addendum 'Meeting over ran and a later train was needed... previously purchased tickets were used by other team members.'
And this, next to five taxi fares totalling around £250: 'Taxi shared with Richard Deverell and Alice Webb'. Never let it be said Salmon isn't value for money.
Two other big flight claims from the BBC's director of global news, Richard Sambrook, including £2,765 for a return flight from London to Beijing, and £4,990 for a trip from London to San Francisco.
The BBC's creative director Alan Yentob's expenses including a dinner for 10 people totalling £317.19, and two three-figure 'meetings to discuss future projects' which came to £108.75 and £147.43. Yentob's total minicabs expenditure: £1,652.
12pm update: The total amount the BBC paid to artists, presenters, musicians and other contributors in the 12 months to 31 March 2009 was £229m – 6.56% of the £3.49bn licence fee income that year.
The BBC issued 300,000 contracts to talent during the year, but declined to provide any further breakdown of the information, either in terms of how many individuals are in each of the income bands listed below, or revealing how much an individuals earned.
This total amount is broken down as follows: Individual salaries/fees up to £50,000: £115m (3.29% of the licence fee)
£50,000 to £100,000: £44m (1.26%)
£100,000 to £150,000: £16m (0.46%)
£150,000 plus: £54m (1.55%) – this band includes the BBC's highest paid stars, including Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton 11.30am: The BBC today published the latest details of salaries and expenses paid to its top executives, including nearly £2,500 of minicab receipts accrued by the BBC director of vision, Jana Bennett.
The corporation's quarterly disclosure of the business-related expenses of its 107 most senior managers also includes, for the first time, gifts and hospitality enjoyed by its senior executives.
BBC director general Mark Thompson and his wife had days out at Glyndebourne, the Chelsea flower show, the Royal Box at Ascot and the women's tennis final at Wimbledon. Thompson also went to the British Grand Prix, with his son, as a guest of Formula One.
The latest expenses relate to the three months between July and September last year. Bennett claimed for more than 50 minicab trips, including three of over £100, the highest being a claim for £156.42 on 10 September.
The statistics are both exhaustive – and exhausting – and I will be reporting further items of interest.
You can too, with the figures available in full on the BBC's website. Please share your thoughts below.
The BBC spent a total of £229m on artists, presenters, musicians and contributors across TV and radio, or 6.5% of the licence fee.
Just over half of the total spending was on people earning £50,000 or less. But around a sixth – £54m – went to people earning more than £150,000 a year.
More details from me – and you – to come.
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