STV to shut STV2 Local Stations

I always wondered what STV were playing at with STV News Tonight. For me, it only made sense if this was a test-out for something that could work on the main channel, but instead it developed the news agenda of Channel 4 News without the budget.

In terms of STV central's news, it sounds like it's just going to replicate the situation in STV North, where most of the programme comes from Aberdeen and there's a 10 minute opt-out for Aberdeen and Dundee. Seems fair enough to me, to be honest, it's still more local than what existed before (though I wonder how long until the Dundee and Edinburgh opts disappear one day?)

I strongly suspect that STV will focus on doing the bare minimum of local content from now on, and any homegrown programming will be produced with the plan of selling it to a national broadcaster. In a way, a smaller scale version of what ITV does with formats in terms of thinking "would America like to buy this?"

I think they did try hard with the local channels at the start. I was genuinely impressed with the quality of the daily output from my local one in Edinburgh. However, like all the other local stations, I’m not sure there is the appetite for this programming, even when done well.

There was a comment made earlier about “why not try a wildlife show or something?” Well, they actually did. I recall watching an episode of something about life in a urban country park which was slightly interesting, there was also a city farm show, but it just felt a bit “worthy” and too padded out. The whole show would’ve been covered as a single item you could find on the likes of BBC Scotland’s Landward or even Countryfile. There was no particular reason to watch other than it was filmed at a place nearby, and that’s not enough of a hook for me.

As for local news, Scotland’s a small country. Even fairly small-scale stuff gets picked up as national news if it happens in Edinburgh or Glasgow. The local channels won’t be missed, but I don’t think “they never learn” is fair either. Sky Scottish was aimed at Scots elsewhere in the UK who supposedly wanted to see STV news and programmes at a time when ITV regions did have very varied schedules. S2 was meant to be aimed at the youth market, but people just "wanted" ITV2. Don’t forget, the management has been different throughout these periods too.



I agree. the other changes proposed seem sensible commercially. I got the impression that STV over the last few years' has been trying to do too much, almost promoting itself as Scotland's national broadcasting company. Nothing wrong with that, and given the Scottish political situation it's probably been wise to keep favour with political stakeholders. That said, they are a commercial business and the new boss seems focused on quicker growth and fewer risks.

Finally, from a viewer’s point of view, I think we’re still in a much better place compared to the end of the dire "no effort" SMGplc days.

I agree. It’s not going to have the same output as it currently does, but it’s going to be more than what it had through the noughties.

The ‘shop window’ idea sounds interesting. More quality, less quantity will work as it will improve the STV brand overall. Rob Woodward did a good job in keeping STV afloat, but his management of the company was to expand cheaply. It didn’t work.

I hope STV News Tonight will show on STV at some point, but it won’t be as easy as moving it from one channel to another.

Does STV make anything for BBC Scotland at present, and would it make anything for the new BBC Scotland channel?

I think the hastily convened 'walk out' - or, as the BBC article now has it, 'outdoor union meeting' - suggests that the unions will not take the redundancy consultation lightly. That said, now the BBC Scotland channel has the go-ahead, they're hiring a couple of dozen broadcast journalists, which is probably more than are currently employed in Scotland, never mind at STV, so I'm sure there would have been a few resignations coming their way regardless of this announcement.



Antiques Road Trip springs to mind, though that's a network commission.

Pretty sure they did that And They're Off... For Sport Relief this year as well.

A few posts on this forum have questioned the future of STV, possibly being taken over by ITV plc. In the event that did happen, that has possible implications south of the border as well. For a start, would the south of Scotland be kept in the Border region, or would it be absorbed into Central Scotland? If the latter, would the programme have an opt out for South of Scotland, as per the East of Scotland, following the changes due?

There's also the question of Cumbria. Would the whole Border region stay intact, or would Cumbria go back to Tyne Tees, or go back to Granada? And then there's the question of reporters. Border has a political editor. But, in the event ITV plc bought STV, and changed the Border region, then question marks would have to appear over the future of some Border region reporters.

Getting back onto STV2, I cannot help but wonder, given this new boss at STV is an ex ITV plc man, if he saw STV2 as a potential threat to ITV2, and based that on his decision.

Could the new owners of the licences commission the likes of Live at Five from STV despite the closure of STV2? Could the new BBC Scotland channel do likewise?

They made a smart decision to close it instead of letting it snowball into sinking all of STV

In other words, burying STV2 before it buried STV?

How much did THATS TV paid for STV2?

I don't think STV2 was ever a threat to ITV2. As pointed out earlier in the thread, it was a little too worthy for that, and never made an impact in terms of viewing figures. I'm not sure STV2 ever spent enough money to bury the whole of STV, in a UTV Ireland kind of way, but at the same time it clearly doesn't make sense to keep something running when it's losing money.

In terms of STV producing more than it did in the noughties, that is undoubtedly true. My concern would be that the new broom doesn't seem particularly interested in Scottish programming and may be quite happy to go back to that era, taking the cash for showing ITV stuff in Scotland and focusing all efforts on trying to get commissions elsewhere. Which is a perfectly understandable way of running a commercial company, but slightly sad.

I suspect the impetus for increasing Scottish programming came before and in the immediate aftermath of the referendum, when STV possibly saw themselves in pole position to be the TV3 of Scotland. But the circumstances are somewhat different.

Despite all the complaining people in Scotland do about English commentary of football and the odd "England and Wales" story in the national news, we do seem to be perfectly happy with 90% of our output coming from London. It's the way it's always been. Whereas Ireland has had its own programming since the start of TV and radio and has got used to that.

One point out of curiosity - STV was overproducing Scottish content so I'm guessing they can just drop the non-news programming such as the football show, history show and stuff like that which were lifts from STV2 and shown against the likes of EastEnders? I'm also guessing there's no specific requirement to do different things for the former Scottish and Grampian regions any more?

Alas the stuff at 8pm is legally required... 50 hours a year of peak time local programmes. But elections and ref are a gold mind.....

Scotland tonight is the enhance legal requirement but get Alot praise and made the bbc having to think again..