Scottish Referendum news thread

It's awful, seen better pictures from the 90's.

Was perfectly OK on STV HD on DSat last night. So any issues will be distribution not contribution related I suspect.

Here is the prof:

Considering Alex Salmond lives in his own independent land of one lunatic I doubt this has been addressed, but has anything been said about the future of commercial TV should Scotland vote yes. We've seen a bit about their plans for an SBC but anything about STV. If they owned the whole C3 franchise it would presumably be quite straight forward but ITV having Border Scotland somewhat complicates things, and I suspect that's the way ITV like it. If the franchise was reissued and STV won it I suspect ITV would launch an ITV Scotland with all their hit shows but none of the regulatory requirements.

Watching here in the Midlands last night, I really did appreciate the professional yet challenging stance he took in the debate. I doubt if any of ITV's 'talent' could have done the same.

I think it's fair in saying that Bernard Ponsonby is certainly up there with the best of the TV political editors. He certainly was getting a lot of praise on social media last night...

Fun fact about him: he stood for the lib dems in 1988 Govan By election. He joined STV in early 90s;

I thought he joined in 1990, then took over from Fiona Ross in 2000...

Its not STV fault the only people to blame are "ITV" Why should STV let BBC and SKY get live feeds? ITV SHOULD have taken it.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/06/stv-livestream-problems-scottish-independence-debate-alex-salmond

STV should take the blame for not offering a stream that wouldn't buckle under the pressure of letting anyone in the world watch it, when it was previously only available to one country. They should have prepared the stream better.

The statement about anyone watching before 8pm getting a perfect stream is a lie. I started watching 10 minutes before, sat through the advert break and then the stream just kept buffering.

Personally, I think it's totally understandable for ITV not to have run this.

As I think VMPhil said a few pages back, it would have practically wiped out their entire evening schedule (in peak time). Perhaps had it been 1 hour instead of 2, the network would have been more inclined to carry it ... and as VMPhil also said, the debate does not fit in with any of ITV's other channels. Just a shame STV's live stream wasn't entirely up to scratch on the night ...

I would agree with this, it's not like ITV do this kind of programming on subjects that affect the entire UK - they did the election debate four years ago, but that's it. There may have been a benefit from ITV screening it after News at Ten but if all STV were offering was a simulcast or nothing, what more can ITV do? Two hours of Scottish politics in primetime UK-wide is a totally unrealistic suggestion, you never got anything like that when ITV was a proper PSB in the seventies and eighties. No matter their Tuesday schedule at the moment is a bit weak, at least it is clearly an ITV schedule.

Besides, everyone else got to see it on BBC Parliament 24 hours later, and what's so important about getting to see it live? Question Time isn't live. Viewers couldn't contribute so what does it matter when they show it?