Reporting Scotland & Scotland Today

Ah the much-touted Dumfries move... this has been being mentioned for probably about six years now, I think it is still planned but goodness knows when. The Dumfries pilot opt is the same... as far as I'm aware it's a possibility but nothing more than that, and it's certainly a longer-term idea.

As for the "real view over Glasgow", given that the studios are going to be based at Pacific Quay, this concerns me... "and here's the view over sunny Govan tonight... later on, we'll walk over to the other side of the studio so you can see the shipyards..." really for this they'd need to be based somewhere that's interesting to watch, like George Square or somewhere similar!

Agree with the comments on size of area and that the presenters cannot interact particularly well. The studio looks terrible, its bad enough that there is no desk without the background being so obviously fake and lifeless, where BBC Scotland has a decent enough looking newsroom to either project there, or expand on the studio space they have for the shorter bulletins and do the full programme from there. If they were to improve on this (studio look) then the programme would be a lot more watchable.

Anyone have any idea what the root of their hatred is? I always get the impression Sally Magnusson can't stand big Dave... like she finds him too sleazy or something. And Rhona Macleod didn't seem too keen on him either - never responding to his friendly banter.

On an unrelated note, what's happened to Rob Maclean?

He's gone to present pay-TV footie channel Setanta's premier league coverage.

Tonight's Reporting Scotland is a wonderful example of how bad the programme has become.

Three indisputable leads to start with - the Kirsty Wark/Jack McConnell scandal, the tsunami local angle and the Jodi Jones murder trial. Fair enough.

Then it becomes a mess. We get a five minute long report on wind turbines in Lewis, five minutes on Polish people going to Lewis and three minutes on the possibility of some rail lines being built in the Borders.

Oh, and 20 seconds each to a murder in Edinburgh, a new angle to the murder of a pensioner in Glasgow, and a deputy headmaster in the north-east done for having child porn.

The programme is clearly wrong and inbalanced in every way, not just geography. The three stories mentioned should be and finallys at best, and tedious local newspaper rubbish at worst. Giving 20 seconds to all these very serious stories is plainly wrong. And the amount of box ticking going on (desperately trying to keep every area in a massive region happy) gets in the way of choosing the right stories.

What should happen is Scotland should be given proper regional opt-outs. After the first three stories are shown nationwide, the show should then be split into north, central and south. They have enough to fill it - the headmaster and the tedious turbine nonsense would do for up north, the murders for the central belt and the rail link in the south. Then they could go back for the sport, or do regional sport if the funding is there.

There should really be a Scottish Six at six, and then proper regional programmes at 6.30pm, but that might be stretching funding a bit far, so I'd be happy with the arrangement mentioned above.

Putting all that to one side, they really need to sort out their news priorities. But I've ranted about that on so many occasions - tedious stories beginning with "The Scottish Executive has announced" instead of real stories that affect real people, for example. Maybe they should just watch Scotland Today (and maybe North Tonight, maybe our Grampian viewers could let us know what they think of that) and see how to do it properly. The reporters at SMG put them to shame on a far smaller budget.

Are you kidding? Last time I watched Scotland Today, sometime between Christmas and New Year, the programme finished around two minutes before the hand-back to the ITV lunchtime news. The presenter padded for around 20 seconds, plugged the website, etc. It then cut to a wide shot, in silence, for maybe another 10 seconds, before we were treated to about a minute of ITV News sting (in silence), which restarted, along with the bed music, for perhaps another 45 seconds.

And don't get me started on what North Tonight was like when I was in Inverness over the summer..

Slight disaster for Scotland Today - their sport was meant to be coming from Celtic Park, but there's been a fire alarm. John McKay's bluffing it so far...

Meanwhile the old problem of covering stories from outwith the region is cropping up again - apparently they're going to be following Gretna's progress in the Scottish Cup, despite the fact that team is clearly from Borderland.

And they've got a new annoying trend of doing national stories at 6pm - leading with the number of Britons believed dead in the tsunami, but adding "We can't tell how many of these are Scottish". And the local angle is?

Still better than Reporting Shetland though.

It gets funnier - they held it together for a bit, used the usual script and packages, and went back to Celtic Park with Jane and former Celtic manager Billy McNeil - just in time for the fire alarm to go off again.

They've hauled out a sports reporter from the newsroom to pad for five minutes, and only now are they beginning to struggle a bit.

Not too bad though considering.

I am surprised that SMG have not axed the lunch time show yet.
It is a waste of time it's just endless dribble.STV have an update during the lunchtime news at 12.30.I'm sick of Stephen Jardine and Lousie White they are so up themselves it's unbelievable.Shereen and John connect more with the viewers.

They desperately need to work out what the lunchtime show is there for.

Is it a news show or is it a light, fluffy, Des and Mel without the budget celebrity interviews show? At the moment the presentation suggests the first, but the content suggests the second.

Billy Sloan is just dire they need to get younger talent for the music and entertainment slot.I'm surprised they just don't go with the network it would save them money and perhaps they could give themselves a new on air look with the saved cash .

BBC Scotland always seems to be messing up the titles at 6pm each night, it seems to be the only region which messes up as badly. Last night thet kept the headline music on and started the title music late and faded the volume up...