Ah - that's like asking how long a piece of string is. Depends entirely what you use it for - it's effectively a virtualisation solution for control panels, but a lot more on top...
Rejection of Scottish Six news programme by BBC ‘irrational’
Hamish Macdonell
February 20 2017
Senior broadcasting figures and nationalist politicians have reacted with anger following reports that BBC managers have axed plans for a “Scottish Six” news bulletin.
Jeremy Peat, who used to be the Scottish trustee on the BBC Trust, said he was “disappointed and saddened” to hear that the BBC had rejected the idea of an hour-long Scottish evening news programme.
John Nicolson, an SNP MP and member of the influential Commons culture, media and sport committee, said that such a move would be both “irrational” and “cloth-eared”.
Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the BBC’s director-general, is due to appear before MSPs on Holyrood’s culture committee later this week.
In advance of that meeting, he is expected to announce the scrapping of plans for a Scottish Six television bulletin and instead promise more money for Gaelic broadcasting and Radio Scotland.
Such an announcement would come as a blow to many in the news and current affairs department at BBC Scotland who have spent much of the past six months working on pilot programmes for a Scottish Six.
The journalists were trialling three different versions of a programme produced and anchored in Scotland, which would replace the BBC News at Six and Reporting Scotland with an hour of Scottish, UK and international news, broadcast from Glasgow.
The BBC refused to comment on the issue yesterday. A spokesman said: “We’ve been formulating our charter proposals for Scotland and will announce them shortly.”
It is understood that BBC managers did not like any of the pilots enough to give the green light to the project.
Mr Peat, a former Royal Bank of Scotland chief economist who also used to be chairman of the BBC pension board, said: “Personally, I find it disappointing.”
He said he was pleased more money may be directed into Gaelic broadcasting but added: “It is sad that it [the Scottish Six] is unlikely to succeed. I do not want Scottish correspondents in every corner of the globe, but this is about balance. Items which can seem very important in England can appear to be less so in Scotland and would be given a different weight if produced for a Scottish audience.”
Mr Peat said he believed the fight for a Scottish Six would go on, particularly as the Brexit debate and the devolution of further powers to Holyrood would provide increasingly strong evidence of the need for more Scottish editorial decision-making.
Mr Nicolson also said he believed the campaign for a Scottish Six would continue. “The BBC has chosen exactly the wrong time to chicken out. It is no wonder the BBC finds itself less trusted in Scotland than anywhere else in the UK,” he said.
He added: “I think the decision the BBC has taken is so irrational, I cannot imagine it will last for long.
“The decision shows what a cloth ear senior figures in London have for the debate in Scotland.”
Union leaders representing BBC Scotland editorial staff also attacked the decision. Paul Holleran, Scottish organiser of the National Union of Journalists, said the move showed the BBC’s attitude to Scotland “stinks”.
“It’s about keeping things centralised. They want to control the agenda set by London and Westminster, but the Scottish Six equivalent would come into conflict with that view,” he said.
A previous bid for an autonomous Scottish news bulletin was rejected by Mark Thompson, the former director-general, in 2006.
STV is planning a similar hour-long bulletin, likely to be shown at 7pm. Several pilots with the presenter John MacKay have already been produced, and plans are well under way for the new STV hour of news to begin in a few weeks’ time.
STV is planning a similar hour-long bulletin, likely to be shown at 7pm. Several pilots with the presenter John MacKay have already been produced, and plans are well under way for the new STV hour of news to begin in a few weeks’ time.
I really can't imagine STV dropping or moving the soaps to a daytime or late evening slot which would be necessary for a bulletin at 7pm
STV is planning a similar hour-long bulletin, likely to be shown at 7pm. Several pilots with the presenter John MacKay have already been produced, and plans are well under way for the new STV hour of news to begin in a few weeks’ time.
I really can't imagine STV dropping or moving the soaps to a daytime or late evening slot which would be necessary for a bulletin at 7pm
Maybe there move it 6pm and control the full hour.
STV is planning a similar hour-long bulletin, likely to be shown at 7pm. Several pilots with the presenter John MacKay have already been produced, and plans are well under way for the new STV hour of news to begin in a few weeks’ time.
I really can't imagine STV dropping or moving the soaps to a daytime or late evening slot which would be necessary for a bulletin at 7pm
You would presume that, if successful, STV would consider transferring the news hour on to STV proper rather than STV2. There are political issues with this though - they'd need to get permission from Ofcom, some people in Scotland seem convinced that handing any news time from London to Glasgow will result in people immediately screaming FREEDOM, and many in the former Grampian region will have a huge issue with an Aberdeen-based bulletin being replaced by one from Glasgow.
It's certainly less controversial than replacing the flagship 6pm News At Six on BBC1 though.
You would presume that, if successful, STV would consider transferring the news hour on to STV proper rather than STV2. There are political issues with this though - they'd need to get permission from Ofcom,
some people in Scotland seem convinced that handing any news time from London to Glasgow will result in people immediately screaming FREEDOM,
and many in the former Grampian region will have a huge issue with an Aberdeen-based bulletin being replaced by one from Glasgow.
It's certainly less controversial than replacing the flagship 6pm News At Six on BBC1 though.
Maybe people who watch the BBC News at Six in Scotland are intelligent enough to know that big stories about health, education and justice are not directly relevant to Scotland but are still indirectly relevant to themselves as people because Scotland is still part of the UK, in which England is the most populous country, and many Scots either have relatives who live in England or themselves need to avail of public services in England, i.e. a sick relative having to go to hospital in England because a Scottish hospital might not have the necessary equipment and personnel for surgery in that case.
As an Englishman who moved to Edinburgh almost three years ago who watches a LOT of news, I totally get it now. I understand why everyone up here is pissed off.
Before I had no idea at all and just thought it was a lot of whining. But sometimes an entire 30 minute bulletin of the Six has nothing at all to do with Scotland (minus international stories, obviously, where it won't get a mention anyway).
The question is whether Reporting Scotland is enough to make up for the shortfall, or whether big stories that could have a slightly different Scottish context should go to a Scottish Six, as I understand it.
For the other perspective, as a Scottish person who now works for a UK service, I totally get why it is the way it is. Stories covering England and Wales reach the vast majority of the UK, so as the set-up exists there's no other way of doing things. There is also no BBC England as such to deal with stories only relevant to that country.
Ideally, a Scottish Six would have solved that by relegating stories less relevant to Scotland, or putting them in a different context - funding of the likes of the health service in England do have consequentials for what money is passed to the Scottish Government, for example. But I can get that the imagery of taking a flagship bulletin away from London, and the politics involved, and then the complaints from the rest of the country (why can't I have a Yorkshire Six) made it a difficult sell for the BBC.
The problem with Reporting Scotland making up for the shortfall is that England and Wales stories are still on the 6, and any Scottish stories big enough to make the 6pm news ended up being repeated less than half an hour later, often with the same correspondents and the same angle.
The broadcasting set-up we have as it stands is perfect for the UK pre-1997. Just like the classic UK fudge approach to devolution meant a federal UK was never really broached, and the West Lothian question was never properly answered, so we've never looked to other countries to see whether further decentralisation would be a good idea. And now, with the BBC under increasing funding cuts, it's very unlikely we're going to look root and branch at what can be done.
In the short-term, further consideration of how to make it totally clear when a story only relates to one part of the UK, making stories from different parts of the UK accessible to audiences who otherwise wouldn't care and just a general sense of "I know there's a problem here" would be good.
As an Englishman who moved to Edinburgh almost three years ago who watches a LOT of news, I totally get it now. I understand why everyone up here is pissed off.
Before I had no idea at all and just thought it was a lot of whining. But sometimes an entire 30 minute bulletin of the Six has nothing at all to do with Scotland (minus international stories, obviously, where it won't get a mention anyway).
The question is whether Reporting Scotland is enough to make up for the shortfall, or whether big stories that could have a slightly different Scottish context should go to a Scottish Six, as I understand it.
London has double the population of Scotland and its BBC regional bulletin is of the same length as Scotland's. So how can Reporting Scotland not be enough for Scottish news?