Scotland

The corporation is launching a new English-language channel in the nation.

From September 2018, BBC Scotland will broadcast nightly from 7pm, and will contain its own hour-long nightly news programme at 9pm (15 minutes at 7pm weekends) which will be edited and presented from Scotland.

The BBC is investing £19m in the channel and in surrounding digital developments, and will oversee the creation of around 80 new journalist posts. Together with existing funding, that will give the channel an initial budget of around £30m.

Is the glass half full or half empty? That classic question, or cliché, is actually a really useful way to look at the production industry in Scotland. On the surface, all appears rosy. 

The BBC has survived largely intact from the Charter renewal process. Whatever emerges from the scrapping of the in-house guarantee and the establishment of BBC Studios, the corporation’s spending commitment in the nations and regions of the UK remains undamaged.  

One of the best contributions to the issue of the public purposes of the BBC was written almost 20 years ago by a then-future Chair of the BBC Board of Governors, Gavyn Davies.

He wrote: “Some form of market failure must lie at the heart of any concept of public service broadcasting. Beyond simply using the catchphrase that public service broadcasting must ‘inform, educate and entertain’, we must add ‘inform, educate and entertain in a way that the private sector, left unregulated, would not do’. Otherwise, why not leave matters entirely to the private sector?”

It is impossible to summarise the political change that swept through Scotland in the period between the independence referendum and the general election. Yes, it was unprecedented. Yes, it was seismic. And yes, it has delivered the biggest number of pro-independence MPs to Westminster since the romantic heydays of Irish nationalism.

With Team 56 – as SNP MPs call themselves – forming the third-largest party in Parliament, the impact on broadcasting in the UK is likely to be profound. And the effects are certain to spread beyond the BBC Charter debate.

The economist Jeremy Peat, a former BBC Scotland Governor and Trustee, observes that the general election outcome "represents a massive vote for change," requiring "not sticking plaster, but fundamental change." He adds: "We are miles away from a stable equilibrium."