BBC to trial Scottish Six

No, I didn't. I was asking if you could find a news programme in the US that matches the format of the proposed Scottish Six - i.e. Scotland-wide (state-wide being the closest equivalent in my eyes), National, and International.

The difference, as I see it, is that for Scotland many stories are not relevant because so much is devolved - to a far greater extent than any other part of the UK (possibly excluding the Channel Islands but I'm not familiar enough with those) including the legal system. That makes many stories irrelevant to Scotland.

Ideally you would have an hour long programme with longer opts for Scotland allowing them to use national coverage of International and UK wide stories and then more local coverage of the rest. The question is t achieve this without a standalone Scottish Six means sacrificing a prioritised running order. E.g. you end up leading on a massive story for England & Wales but it is irrelevant for Scotland.

Okay, there's a problem with trying to be that specific, i.e., something that covers a whole state. There's 50 states in the US, but 210 local media markets, and the closest I can find to your idea, is market number 30 in Hartford & New Haven, which covers most of Connecticut, but not the entirety of it, as the big New York market also serves part of Connecticut.

There are some small stations that link together in something resembling a statewide newscast, but often these miss a major city, like the state capital, because they have their own local news. However, any of the top 10 local markets are comparable in population or have more population than the population that would be served by the Scottish Six.

But the basic idea, local news( which lets be honest, is what Scottish news basically is), national and international news is what most of these newscasts do.

It would be interesting to know how they plan on doing these pilots. It's ons thing to pilot the programme to see how it would look on air but what about the logistics. How many times a week does the Six run a piece directly from an edit suite - how would Glasgow run with that and presumably a delay on a piece being edited could affected the running order in London & Glasgow. That all has knock on effects on the availability of correspondents for two ways presumably.

The short answer is "no" then. Thank you.

You want something comaprable with the Scottish Six idea, I gave you what was comparable. But that wasn't good enough for you, because you thought you could impose your own idea of what the scottish Six would be. The reality is it would be a combined local, national and international news programme, which is actually what most 'local' news is in the US.

You wanna stick to the narrowest possible definition, then the answer is "No, because radio transmissions are no respecters of borders", and if you are serious about broadcasting, you should already KNOW that. I gave the reality based answer, but apparently that's not good enough.

I think the big issue here is that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are (in broadcast news terms) neither nations or regions - there's no way you could fill 30 minutes of 'international' and Scotland-wide news for 30 minutes, and then another 30 minutes of 'local' Scottish news, like you could for England or UK-wide.

I would probably choose a format where the 'nations' take the national Six, but with the nations' galleries opting out at pre-agreed times to replace England-only stories with a main news item. You could even go as far as have the London newsreader pre-record the opening, so there's consistency.

Alternatively, just do like ITV and flip the 6 and 6:30 bulletins in the nations. The News Channel would take the 'Six' again at 6:30, with a slightly altered running order to account for non-English residents, so that the regions can lead with main regional stories with no reduction in national/international news. But overall I think this entire exercise is flawed, and based on a political pressure.

Surely the nearest comparison to a 'Scottish Six' is S4C's Newyddion?

There's lots of logistical issues. Late packages is one but also how will they handle live reporters if both programmes have the same top story is another thing that will need to be thought about. Could they be 3rd in the queue behind the News Channel and World?

Then there's issues with getting the various feeds and sources that the newsroom in London get, up to Glasgow. Salford does it every morning, but it was built that way. BBC Scotland has less connectivity as it stands

I wonder if an arrangement that Scotland *can* opt out if the London based Six is devoting a significant amount of the programme to devolved matters would work? Most days everything would be as it is now, but from time to time they would drop the Six and do the whole hour from Glasgow.

That would mean that there was no pressure on the same lives, and would mean that stories that network drops get an airing in Scotland.

I'm not convinced people would like not knowing what they're going to tune into each day. I think people like consistency.

One alternative could be to produce a junction in the Six, say at 1820, when needed, after which devolved competence issues would usually be placed, this would enable Reporting Scotland to start earlier and get an extension on those occasions. The concept could equally be extended to Wales and NI in due course too. I realise that on occasions, such as the Jn Docs, where interest extends beyond the competence, where this wouldn't be a 'clean' split. There'd be nothing to prevent the devolved broadcasts picking up on other matters covered in the 1820-1830 slot on the 'English' Six either say in a 1855 wrap, giving the opportunity to record the English output for the purpose.