Scottish ITV News at 10.30

"if compensated for by an increase in the quality of Scottish news." . What are Ofcom saying?

Also interesting to note that Grampian's non-news output must increase by more than double (four hours), and Border's trebles to three hours. Scottish doesn't need to increase at all though, which is somewhat bizarre, although I don't know what the current level is.

Not sure that SMG will go ahead with it if they're not given concessions like a lower licence, decreased regional commitments or a chance to avoid paying for network programmes though.

By ITN look do they mean the blue arrows, white ITN logo, etc.

An increase in the quality of Scottish News means the split news service in Scotland Today and North Tonight, together with the Scottish 10.30.

Scottish TV currently produces 4 hours and 4 minutes per week of non-news regional programming.
Do not get excited by the increase in hours for Grampian and Border. The four hours for Grampian are, 1 hour of unique regional non-news programming produced solely by Grampian, with the other three hours produced by Scottish, Grampian or independents, and includes 1 hour of Gaelic programmes. The aforementioned means 3 hours of programming on Grampian can be met by them broadcasting STV’s Scotsport SPL, STV’s Seven Days, STV’s High Times and 1 hour of Gaelic. The up side for Grampian viewers is that Grampian would have to make an extra 18 hours of unique non-news regional programming per year, as is currently the case.
The extra 2 hours of non-news programmes for Border Scotland viewers would air weekly simultaneously with Grampian and Scottish. For example, STV’s Seven Days, and STV’s Scotsport First, could air all over Scotland, at no extra cost to ITV1 Border.
The proposal is that if any regional programme replaces a Networked one, no payment needs to be made to the Network for the dropped programme.

So in other words, SMG need only produce one hour of totally regional programming for Scottish and Grampian. These programmes may be dominated by Scottish TV, but are clearly not being produced solely for viewers in central Scotland, so viewers of both stations are being short-changed. I don't even know where to start with Border...

Strikes me the best way for OFCOM to deal with this is to call SMG's bluff and allow them to drop specific networked programmes and use the money to come up with their own shows. Ditching Coronation Street would be unpopular and suicidal, ditching Dimbelby would be wrong and politically dangerous, so the exact programmes would have to be set out. It'd be nice if this could be brought in before any subsequent "England: A Celebration" programme, although given the rugby team's current misfortunes, "Wales: A Celebration" is looking more likely...

From Broadcast:

Government welcomes SMG news proposal

Arts minister Estelle Morris has welcomed the proposal by SMG, owner of Scottish Television and Grampian Television, to screen a tailored Scottish version of ITV's main 10.30pm news.

SMG proposed the opt-out in its submission to Ofcom's current review of national commercial broadcasting. It also wants Scottish TV's requirement for news reduced by 2.5 hours a week.

"The agenda that SMG has outlined is an interesting proposal for the way ahead which secures the minimum number of hours of local and national news and responds to what the evidence says about what people want to watch," Morris said.

"However, the proposals also extend into the debate about what is national news and what is regional news under devolved government, where there is both a strong Scottish national identity and a strong United Kingdom identity.

"I am pleased that SMG has made this proposal, as it is exactly the sort of thing that we need to discuss. We cannot say there will be no change, but we do needed a bottom line that is non-negotiable."

I think this has just come from that debate they had in the house of commons last thursday, wonder why its taken them a week to write about it.

"And now, News at Ten. With Trevor McDonald and Shereen Nanjiani. "

Oh, how I long to hear those words....................

I am sorry but I do not want a Scottish news opt out. I find it increasingly difficult to be interested in Scottish news. All you get is news of that total moron of a First Minister and all the 5th rate so call politicians, who we have to pay for, to run a monkey of a parliament in Edinburgh. Ever since we were inflicted with the pain of devolution we hear of nothing but distress of the implementation of archaic policies which is destroying this once great country. I would rather watch the news from London. At least Westminster politics is interesting and a total contrast from the crass and inept politics which takes place in Scotland.

Mind you, judging on the voting patterns of the majority of Scots maybe this is what they want!

To be fair Scotland Today is not normally guilty of obsessing about politics - it's more likely to lead on a human interest story. There's not much prospect of any 10.30pm bulletin becoming SMG's version of Newsnight Scotland. All that would happen is that a few Scottish stories would be slotted in to replace the many stories which are England and Wales only.

And Westminster politics interesting? Since when?

Or even "and Pauline Allen"!!!

Or even "Nick Harvey and Spit the dog!"

Like many corporates, Scottish Television/SMG have become quite adept at spinning themselves of late, but the news output I have been watching since 1960 has never really amounted to much in content or style, despite the occasional personality popping up, such as the much-missed John Toye. At one point, the certainty of the mike boom appearing in shot during Here & Now was such that it was decorated with mistletoe at Christmas-time.

I suppose the main benefit to Scotland of new, micro-region transmission technology will be the opportunity to simulcast news pieces headlined 'Farmer shears sheep' in Perthshire and 'Man receives letter' in Motherwell, followed by endless coverage of our disastrous Parliamentarians ('First Minister in sex/expenses fiddling/malapropism scandal.')

As regards a Scottish News at 10.30, I wonder if it could be remembered that we actually live in one nation, the reason behind the rejection of BBC's 'Scottish Six'; and in any case there is simply not enough Scottish news to sustain such a broadcast (see above), despite which this bulletin is largely our window on the world, making its 'accent' irrelevant.

As for STV, their much trumpeted move to a new studio centre at Pacific Quay should be seen for what it is: the loss of Scotland's only major production studio outside the BBC – Cowcaddens Studio A – and its associated crafts.

Never has Lord Thomson's infamous ' licence to print money' aphorism seemed so appropriate in relation to STV, especially in respect of all this fatuous waffling by former TV presenter Bobby Hain about plans that are most unlikely to see fruition.

Incidentally, I live in Dubai and am based at Dubai Media City. We have no less that 70 channels uplinking from this campus, many of which, particularly MBC (general entertainment) and Al Arabiyah (24 hour rolling news) put STV's output to shame.