BBC1 controller Peter Fincham and his head of press Jane Fletcher are set to resign today following Will Wyatt's inquiry into the "Crowngate" affair, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal.
Sources within the BBC say the pair have been in talks with senior executives about their actions following the BBC1 autumn launch in which promotional footage was falsely edited to give the impression that the Queen had stormed out of a photo shoot.
They have decided to quit because they knew by 5pm on the day of the BBC1 press launch on July 11 that the story was untrue. But they did not correct it until the following morning, allowing the media - including BBC News - to run with the story.
The BBC did not apologise until July 12, when it admitted the sequence of events in a BBC1 documentary about the Queen had been misrepresented and would not be shown that way in the final programme.
Today's report is expected to be equally critical of Jana Bennett, the director of BBC Vision. Mr Fincham told the inquiry that he made it clear to Ms Bennett in an evening meeting on July 11 that the story was untrue. She disputes this, and is expected to survive for the moment.
Stephen Lambert, the creative director of RDF Media, which made the documentary, is also criticised. It is thought the BBC will say today that it will not work again with RDF except with strict conditions.
A BBC spokesman had not returned calls at time of publication.
BBC chairman Sir Michael Lyons recently raised a question mark over Mr Fincham's future when he told the Times: "Do I personally think it was reasonable to check something that was so newsworthy? Yes I do. And that is a question I and the BBC Trust continue to ask."
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