Scotland doesn’t have its own public broadcaster. The BBC is based in England and regulated from Westminster. Virtually all commercial broadcasters are owned by companies based outside Scotland. So what?
A public broadcaster is important: it should be expected to provide a source of trusted, impartial news and information about Scotland, cover topics that might be ignored by commercial broadcasters, promotes diverse viewpoints, and serve the Scottish public’s interest by offering quality programming across a wide range of subjects, including educational and cultural content that reflects Scottish society. It can be crucial for a well-informed citizenry and a healthy democracy; essentially acting as a “voice for the people” that isn’t solely driven by profit motives.
Scotland needs it owns broadcasters. Until we do, we have to make do with grass roots and community organisations – or our own social networks.
Commercial broadcasting in Scotland
Commercial broadcasting in Scotland has been a story of consolidation. The only TV channel run from Scotland is STV, and radio broadcasting has seen a history of takeover and consolidation by companies from abroad. German billionaire family-owned Bauer Media Group now has by far the largest share of Scotland’s audience, followed by London based Global Media, owned by multi-millionaire Ashley Daniel Tabor-King.
The most listened-to radio stations in Scotland are virtually all commercial, typically with their content produced from shared studios – often not even in Scotland. The BBC’s flagship station, Radio Scotland, only appears in 13th spot. In an average week more than 20% of listeners in Glasgow and The West listen to Clyde 1. Whereas across Scotland only 4.9% listen to the BBC.
Public broadcasting in Scotland
Our public broadcaster the BBC should be providing a source of trusted, impartial news and information about Scotland. And OFCOM’s analysis shows that we’re much more interested in getting that – much more than people in England are.
More than half of people in Scotland are very interested in news about Scotland. Contrast with England, where most are only “quite” interested. So where do most in Scotland turn for their news, and how is this changing?
Whilst STV is ranked highly as a news source, BBC One is the largest source of news for people in Scotland (but closely followed by Facebook). So you’d expect that this channel has lots of Scottish content? Think again. And why is the flagship BBC Scotland TV channel scraping in at tenth place, behind Instagram and Twitter? Lets look at their Scottish programming – after all, Scotland must pay for these channels through its Licence Fee, so what does it get?
The BBC broadcasts very little programming from Scotland: only 12.5% of BBC Scotland’s day is spent broadcasting programming from Scotland, whereas BBC One, the BBC’s UK-wide flagship channel, spends only 2.8% of its day on programming from Scotland – and the rest of the time broadcasting programming from England. Only 50 minutes were spent on Scottish news in the whole of this sample day.
The BBC claims that it spends a lot in Scotland on “network” content shown across the UK. This was not evident in the sample day. Indeed, it was recently caught out with the massively popular Traitors series: set in Scotland but with only a small number of local professionals working on the programme.
So where do Scottish people get their news about their own nation? Surely our public broadcaster would be top of this list? Well, it is – for those in England.
The BBC certainly isn’t the most popular source of news about Scotland. This honour goes to commercial station STV. In fact, BBC One only just pips Facebook, and BBC Scotland TV is well down the popularity table. What about BBC Radio? We saw above how its audience reach is well below the level of commercial competitors, but how is the BBC’s premier radio channel in Scotland trending?
BBC Radio Scotland’s reach was always relatively small compared to commercial radio stations. And this “reach” includes all programming – sport, entertainment as well as news. Nonetheless its popularity has been in steep decline for many years. With big events there are peaks – but the audience drops increasingly more rapidly away. Look at the post-COVID drop – its huge. Could the audience be getting increasingly disillusioned with the BBC’s programming for Scotland?
With commercial stations controlled from abroad and increasingly filled with news and entertainment from shared streams piped in from elsewhere, and the BBC only playing lip-service to Scotland, who’s trying to fill the gap?
Who’s trying to fill the gap?
Broadcasting and its regulation are powers reserved for Westminster – the Scottish Government has no say. Its perhaps no surprise, therefore, that Scotland is so badly represented in Scottish broadcasting services.
With virtually all the money in public and commercial broadcasting managed outside Scotland, it is left to grass roots organisations to try to fill the gap. With little funding they must use the internet to deliver their content. For TV this includes Broadcasting Scotland. For podcasting and radio streaming of Scottish current affairs, factual, and entertainment a range of small-scale national broadcasters exist including Indy Live Radio; Independence Live; Harvest Moon Radio; and Caledon Media.
Scotland also has many local community radio stations:
[clickable version including links to listen]
What might the future hold for broadcasting in Scotland?
Westminster recently passed the Media Act 2024, which OFCOM is currently implementing. Will it help? Touted as a modernisation in the regulation of TV and radio, both public and commercial, you’d expect so. Unfortunately the bill, put forward by a Tory government and supported by Labour, does much to further liberalise broadcasting and continue to ignore the findings of The Leveson Inquiry.
What does the Act mean for Scotland? It will make the situation worse: the Act means that public broadcasters are no longer required to provide “societally valuable” content, such as arts, religion, education and science programming. It also further deregulates commercial radio, in a way which will lead to even less local Scottish non-news content.
Finally, the Act increases the number of “Listed Events” – those sports events that must be received by at least 95% of the UK population via “qualifying services”. The only Scottish channel defined as “qualifying service” is STV. As a result of the population criteria, the only Listed Events are those that an England or GB team feature in.
No independent nation would countenance the situation Scotland finds itself in: its society is little represented in the broadcast channels it is forced to accept, with virtually all controlled from other countries. Its public broadcaster virtually ignores it. Take a look at what happens in other comparable European countries. This is what Scotland’s public broadcaster might look like, were it to regain independence.
In Denmark on the same sample day ore than 72% (almost three quarters) of all programming came from… Denmark on their flagship channel DR1. Compare that with the 12.5% from Scotland on Scotland’s flagship channel.
Scotland needs its own broadcasters
Whether it’s programming that captures Scottish society – our languages, arts, religion, education and more – or news and current affairs that reflects a balanced view of Scotland and our politics – it’s clear that Scotland needs its own broadcasters. We don’t have them. And the new Westminster Media Act will just reduce “local” Scottish content even further.
Westminster needs to pass power for broadcasting to our Scottish Government.
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