I'm afraid I have to disagree. I've friends and contacts in BBC production who refer to the writers room as equivalent to a busy publishing house. It is incredibly difficult despite the positive image the website portrays to be taken on. They do take on unknowns, yes; but it's very, very rare.
The first point is that your initial submission gets critiqued. In most people's english, that should read savaged.
Second, your work is not seriously considered. They don't read the front and say "oh, this is a piece of historical comedy set in a portuguese shipping merchants office at the time of the american expeditions" (random example), "we'll give it to Mary- she vets our comedy and has an interest in history for a good read!" Far from it: your work is handed out to whoever is on the rota to read the stuff. If the person who gets your script loves reality shows and hates comedy (and your works a comedy), guess what? It's rejected without even a consideration. Once they work out they don't like it? Rejection.
Any submission to the writers room is a lottery: if you are lucky enough to find a person opens your submission with a genuine interest in your genre and hasn't got fifty other scripts to read that day, you will be in luck.
Third, they use the ten page rule (if they get that far) which I agree on: if the first ten pages doesn't grab you, send it back. Most don't even get to ten pages. Once they decide they don't like it, there goes the rejection.
Fourth, the BBC is politically motivated (again, an insider disclosure) so you will often read articles on the BBC writers room where they target specific people from specific backgrounds / ages / ethnicities to hear "the real voice of (insert geographical place) Britain". Doesn't matter how good your work is: if it doesn't fit within the specific criteria of what they actually want, they won't shelve it and contact you later; they'll just bin it.
Fifth, you get one bite with a script. Just one. unless you are lucky enough for your work to get so high in the chain someone asks for a re-write with comment notes, you will be brushed off and instructed that "re-submission is not an option".
I stopped trying with the BBC when I spoke honestly to a producer on a leading BBC Drama (not going to say which one because I don't want to get him in trouble) and secondly a commissioning editor who said "in all honesty? You'd be better off avoiding the writers room and submitting to tv companies direct".
I'm also working with a bloke who used to work for the BBC: anything you write belongs to them. Unless they just pay you a nominal fee for the idea and give it to their own in house writers (more common) you get a wage, yes (if they commission you to write the series but that is incredibly rare!): but royalties? forget it. You conceived it? You wrote it? ...and? You want a percentage of DVD sales? Sorry: thought you read the small script...
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