Official Report 555KB pdf
Good morning, and welcome to the third meeting of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee in 2026. We have received apologies from Clare Adamson.
The first item on our agenda is to take evidence on Scottish broadcasting, the BBC charter renewal and the BBC annual report. Today, we are joined by Hayley Valentine, director, BBC Scotland; Louise Thornton, head of multiplatform commissioning, BBC Scotland; Luke McCullough, corporate affairs director, BBC nations division, BBC; and Rhona Burns, finance director for financial planning and insight, BBC.
I invite Ms Valentine to make a short opening statement.
Good morning. Thank you so much for having us. The media and broadcast sector is in the middle of a period of change that is more rapid and transformative than anything that I have seen in my career. It is being driven by technology, and the sector is completely changing. In the past decade, we have effectively moved from a live, linear schedule with limited choices to an on-demand world in which we can choose what, when and where we consume our content—essentially a whole world of choice.
In news in particular, people can find out what is going on locally or globally in many more ways, which are not all reliable. In this world, the BBC is more important than ever. We need to provide a distinctive, trustworthy, tailored service for the licence fee payer, reach audiences wherever they are and provide news that is relevant and local while explaining and analysing the bigger picture of world events.
We need to create more content that reflects people’s lives by covering the culture, music, events and sports that matter to them, and compete on quality with international streamers that produce dramas that, in some cases, rival blockbuster films.
For the BBC, serving audiences wherever and whenever they want us to has brought about huge changes. Rather than being schedule or channel-driven, we commission and make content to deliver to all our platforms and many third-party ones. We make multiple versions of our news stories, which are tailored to many different audiences’ needs. We make fewer, bigger, more ambitious dramas, comedies and factual programmes that serve audiences here, but we also take Scottish stories across the world.
We are seeing a huge amount of consolidation in the market—companies are under umbrella ownership and are forming more partnerships to meet the budget requirements of modern television in particular. As we see some in our industry reducing the number of commissions that they give to the Scottish sector or withdrawing coverage from all Scotland, we understand how vital our work is to support the sector, train for the future and serve audiences across the country.
All that is happening while we manage our own significant budget pressures and continue to serve many people who still rely on linear services. Despite the challenges, the health of the sector is really good, and the broader industry in Scotland can really capitalise on the changes and the opportunities that I have outlined.
To touch on the charter, our BBC audience survey told us that, in addition to independence from governments, people want high-quality entertainment, drama and comedy, as well as programmes that educate and inform. They want to see themselves and their lives reflected in the programmes that we make. We ask for the flexibility to respond and change as quickly as our commercial rivals and for the long-term sustainable funding that will enable us to do that. We really want those of you who are in this room, your colleagues in this building and all your constituents across Scotland to make your voices heard in the conversation about our future.
Thank you very much. Before I bring in colleagues, I have a few questions. I have a broad opening question for you, Ms Valentine. You will be aware that, as well as considering the charter renewal and the annual report, we are conducting a wider inquiry, which started a couple of weeks ago. We have already heard from academics, news and journalism professionals, production and skills professionals and Ofcom, but how would you describe the current state of broadcasting in Scotland from a BBC perspective?
The sector is in really good shape. The BBC is investing more and more money in Scotland. Our challenge is to keep that going and ensure that we serve audiences wherever and whenever they want us to and that we cover the whole of Scotland and all our audiences. As I said, some audiences are very loyal to our linear services. Our television, radio and online services are all in good health, but we need to go further because audiences access content in lots of other places, too. It is important that we think about how we serve all our audiences.
As I said, the change in the market means that we make content that competes with very deep-pocketed streamers but is also distinct from them. We are all about serving Scotland and making it feel that the country is reflected, portrayed and respected in our content, which we produce in greater volumes than anybody else.
On the point that you highlighted about ensuring that you cover all areas and demographics, one issue that has come up a number of times has been that, as we move towards new ways of delivering content, we must be careful not to remove more traditional ways that certain demographics—older people and people in some regions—are very reliant on. How do you ensure that you do not leave certain groups behind?
On the geography point, I think that we have more bases in Scotland—14, of which 12 cover news—than any other broadcaster or media organisation. As you know, we have several opt-outs across the country, which means that we do specific content for those areas.
I point you to the coverage of the severe weather in the first week of the year. I have probably never been more proud of my journalists, particularly in the north-east, the Highlands, Orkney and Shetland, in the way that, while half the country looked out of their window and said, “My drive’s blocked and my kids have not got a school to go to,” they went out there and covered the story in really difficult conditions. They will continue to cover such stories.
The linear piece is a challenge, because we are riding two horses at the moment. We are pushing into the areas where younger audiences receive their news and general content while serving audiences that are still very loyal to our linear services. Louise Thornton might talk about this later, but we do not commission for a specific channel terribly often. The situation is slightly different for our continuous services, but we commission content and place it in lots of different places.
Whereas, at the beginning of my career, we worked in specific areas—I started in radio and moved into television—we are now asking our journalists and content makers to make pieces of content for a number of different outlets. That is increasing, and it is about how we pivot in telling stories to slightly different audiences in different places, while maintaining television, radio and online services for people.
For example, as you may have seen, we recently started badging our content in Scotland with Verify—I think that that was done for the first time with the Scottish budget. We now have the Verify badge in Scotland. We delivered huge numbers for our live page that day with Verify content, and we made digital videos with Verify badging. Audiences got live coverage of the budget, with extensive coverage across our television services and radio that day and the following day. At the same time, we are moving into other areas to ensure that, if television and radio are not where people go, they still get the benefit of our coverage of big events.
On the part of your question about technologies and ensuring that all audiences can access public service content, the future of Freeview, for example, is a matter for the UK Government, not for the broadcasters, but the BBC would not envisage any scenario where people were left behind.
We already have a history of moving the audience in Scotland from analogue transmission to digital. Now, all of Freeview is via digital transmission. The whole ethos of that bit of work in Scotland, in 2010 and 2011, was to ensure that there was help for people and that no one was left behind. A universal public broadcaster needs everyone to have access to its services.
That is an important point. You highlighted the situation with the bad weather recently, Ms Valentine. I was in Orkney, and when I looked out to the drive I could not see it. That highlights the importance of local radio, particularly to keep people updated on what is going on with school and road closures. The people who are listening are perhaps those who will always get up to listen to the morning’s broadcasting.
We serve the whole of Scotland, and that story was obviously far more relevant in the north of Scotland. I think that that shows our commitment. Occasionally, the media in Scotland is accused of being central belt-centric, but we absolutely were not on that occasion. We achieved huge audience numbers. We know that such stories are of interest, whether you cannot see your drive or whether you are sitting in Glasgow thinking, “This feels very different.”
We did one thing that I thought was genius: instead of doing a “What’s On” piece on Orkney and Shetland, we did a “What’s off” piece. The services were absolutely committed to keep on doing that.
Friends of mine in Glasgow were telling me how much they wished that they had the snow, while we were sitting in the snow wishing that we did not have it.
I will move on to a second question before I bring in colleagues. One of our academic witnesses told us:
“My view is that BBC Scotland could do more and be more ambitious, and that it should have a greater budget to do that. It should be a sector leader on skills and development, and it should be a catalyst for the whole media ecosystem. My worry is that, at the moment, BBC Scotland is in many ways too insular and does not have enough relationships and activities with other stakeholders in the media ecosystem.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 8 January 2026; c 6-7.]
My question to you, Ms Valentine—and perhaps your colleagues—is, what is your response to Professor Higgins’s critique?
The way in which the BBC has operated in Scotland has recently changed massively, as I mentioned at the beginning. We have never had more partnerships and we have never looked more broadly. We absolutely should be a catalyst for the things that you have talked about, and I would argue that we are. I am superambitious for our content, both in taking what you might call ambitious, risk-taking editorial decisions and in expanding what we do: expanding the number of dramas that we make, and expanding where we are in comedy and entertainment, factual programmes and our news.
I will get Louise Thornton to come in in a second, as she deals with a lot of different people, but we are constantly looking for external partners. Frankly, it is not easy to make the big pieces of content—the expensive drama that we are going into—without external partners, and we are constantly looking for external partnerships, across the country and across the world.
As you will have seen in the announcements that we made last year on our drama strategy, there is far more co-commissioning now, so that we can attract the bigger budgets from other parts of the BBC—from network BBC—and, much more broadly, from the industry as well.
You can look at some recent examples. Our Gaelic services have moved into high-impact drama, and they have been ambitious to develop the ability to attract a variety of different funding partners in order to do that. I will pass to Louise Thornton in a second, as she can give you more detail about the partners that we work with on those areas. We are very ambitious on skills and training and we take our responsibilities for that extremely seriously. We work with a range of partners, including Screen Scotland, on all the products that we make, and with our third-party providers and production companies to make sure that training and skills are embedded.
08:45
In addition, as the committee probably knows, we now have 70-odd apprentices in the BBC. We have a relationship with every university in Scotland. We have some formal relationships with institutions such as the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, for example, but we also have informal relationships. I looked into that after one of the committee’s previous witnesses spoke about university relationships, and I could not find a university in Scotland that we do not have a relationship with.
Some of our senior editorial figures use what we call development days or their own time to go and work with students. The proof of that is seen when we hire—the lists of our recent first hires and apprentices show that they often come out of those courses.
At the school, university and further education level, we have relationships across Scotland that are beneficial to both sides. We do a lot of work on training and skills with our apprentices, and we also work with the sector when we commission something. Both because we want to and because we have to, we work with a huge range of partners. Louise, do you want to come in on that?
We have never been so outward looking, certainly in the time that I have been in commissioning. That is out of ambition, but also out of necessity. If you look at our “Scripted” slate, when we started the channel, we built on the success of “Guilt” and we are now looking at a raft of dramas and comedies that have international funding. For example, we are really excited about “Counsels”, which is coming later in the year. It has a number of partners including us in the BBC network, but it is also in co-production with ZDFneo. Such structures need to be put together to get ambitious drama off the ground.
We are about to launch Richard Gadd’s new drama, “Half Man”, which is coming very soon. We are working on that with our partners in BBC content, but also with HBO. Our comedy, “Dinosaur”, is coming back for a second series. We work in partnership with Hulu on that, so a brilliant Glasgow-based comedy is going out on the other side of the Atlantic.
We are building partnerships constantly. BBC Scotland is certainly out there having international meetings. Just before Christmas, we had a successful drama called “The Ridge”. That was our own commission, so we did not work with the network on that drama, but we worked with Sky New Zealand—that was a new partnership for us that was built up through lots of collaboration. You can imagine the conversations at 8 o’clock in the morning versus 8 o’clock at night to manage the time difference.
I would like to come in on that. It is important to hear about those international relationships, but what about the landscape in Scotland? Are there enough opportunities in Scotland for more commissioning or more partnerships? Do you find that the Scottish broadcasting scene is too small? Have you already maxed out the relationships that you have in the sector?
The sector is ambitious. Certainly, when I go to international events, there is a lot of representation from Screen Scotland and Scottish production companies, which are doing work across the world. The opportunity and ambition are there and we have some brilliant production companies that know how to put together deals, and their number is increasing.
I feel positive about the direction of travel, certainly within drama and comedy. It is slightly harder to build international co-productions just because of cultural sensibilities around comedy and where it travels. That is why I am so excited about “Dinosaur”, which has done so well and is coming back for a second series. We have a strong relationship with Hulu. We have made a lot of progress in the past five years, and we are in a good position.
We also have a number of Scotland-wide partnerships with other organisations. Those that have a Scotland-wide portfolio are the most obvious, such as MG Alba, with which we make BBC Alba. We have partnerships with the National Library of Scotland and, as Hayley Valentine mentioned, with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, because it is the only institution of its kind. We also have partnerships with the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities, which is a helpful umbrella body that brings Scotland’s academic institutions together with people who want to do research in culture and the arts. We work with the National Film and Television School, the Scottish Library and Information Council and the Scottish Book Trust. We think that it is vital that we work with that range of Scotland-wide bodies, and those arrangements are not just ad hoc—we have formal partnerships with those bodies.
Thank you. I will bring in colleagues.
I was interested in Hayley Valentine’s comments about BBC Scotland’s outreach to universities and colleges. You were right to pick up on some of the evidence that we have received about that. Forgive me for saying this but, from the way in which you described it, it does not sound very structured. Is it as structured as it should be?
It is ad hoc. We have relationships that are based on the skill sets that the universities are seeking and the skill sets of individuals in the BBC. If I am honest, I cannot imagine that the outreach would be better if it was more structured—if we mandated a certain number of days or whatever. We have different levels of expertise. For example, one of our excellent development producers spends time in a university working with people on pitches, and members of our “Disclosure” team go out to Stirling to talk to people about investigative journalism.
Because I heard the evidence that the committee took, I asked a question, and I was surprised by how much came back. If I had heard that the work was sketchy and that only a few universities were benefiting from it, I might be sitting here saying that we should set up something a bit more structured. However, I think that it is working brilliantly. We have people with development experience working with people on how to put a pitch together, we have senior figures in news going out to speak to people on news journalism courses, and we have had our head of politics out at universities, as well as our head of news and our head of sport.
You said that they are doing that pretty much in their own time.
At the BBC, we have something called development days. We offer people three days a year as part of that structure, and they can go out and do such outreach in that time. People do it while they are on shift; we are not asking them to do it at the weekends.
It is great that those individuals do that, but I wonder whether the BBC ought to have a more up-front profile in the institutions. I accept what you say about what those people do when they go out on their development days, but should the BBC itself not plant a flag in the universities and colleges, given that the brand is under a bit of pressure with young people, to put it mildly?
If I thought that there was a lack, I would be thinking about different ways of covering it. I knew about some of this work already. I think that one of your witnesses was from the University of the West of Scotland, and we have a huge relationship with that institution. A number of the people I have mentioned have been out to that university to talk to journalism students and sports students in particular. One of the regular output editors of our “Drivetime” programme on radio is a former student of UWS, who we brought in and worked with, and she is now in a senior position. We also have several apprentices who have come from UWS. I think that the relationships are working.
I do not know whether you remember a journalist called Nick Sheridan, who sadly died very young a few years ago. I was part of the team that hired him into the BBC from STV when we launched the BBC Scotland channel. Alongside STV and UWS, we set up a bursary in Nick’s name when he died.
I did not recognise the particular portrayal of a lack of relationship. As I said, if I thought that there was an issue, I would be trying to solve it. What I found is that we do even more than I expected. It is working very effectively and it is quite tailored. If anything fell off, we might think differently. If anyone is sitting in a university saying, “I’d like more contact with the BBC,” they are free to ask and we will always say yes.
That is positive.
You have obviously been well briefed on the evidence that we have taken over the past couple of weeks, in which the BBC has featured heavily. A few minutes ago, you said that the Scottish broadcast ecosystem is in good health. However, as I am sure you are aware, that is not what we heard from previous witnesses, specifically in relation to commissioning. When you were here last year, you told us:
“We have 14 commissioners based in Scotland; that is a combination of commissioners who work directly for me, commissioners who work for network looking for Scottish ideas that we can co-commission together, such as “Shetland”, and commissioners who work for our Gaelic services.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 29 May 2025; c 44.]
However, in published research, Screen Scotland has said:
“The decrease in commissioning activity from the PSBs, particularly the BBC’s reduction in originated hours and Channel 4’s recent commissioning freeze, is coming together with a wider industry trend of polarisation in content spend, where content commissioners reprioritise spend to fewer high value originations plus lower budget content.”
That squares with what you have said this morning. Every one of you who has spoken about commissioning has talked about ambition, which has become a codeword for “big”—one might be forgiven for talking of big and beautiful productions. However, according to the evidence that we have heard, that is having a really adverse effect on the small independent production or content creation sector.
Do you recognise that reality? It sits in juxtaposition to your comment about the ecosystem being in good health because, in some parts, the ecosystem is clearly not in good health.
There is no doubt that we are in a period of change. We can see that in audience habits, and the sector is changing to reflect that. You are correct that, as an industry, we are commissioning fewer hours. There are inflationary and budgetary pressures. However, it is not just that; we need big hits to bring people together and, as the BBC—
You are in competition with the streamers.
Yes, we are in competition with streamers. We are in competition with digital platforms and gaming. We all know what the picture is like—it is very competitive.
The other point of view is that the BBC should not be in competition with any of those and that it has a distinctive role to play in the ecosystem. It should not see itself as being in competition with Netflix.
We are in competition because we want people to want to pay the licence fee. People need to see value in the BBC, so we need to make content that they value. It is great that “The Traitors” is the biggest show in the nation at the moment—that is fantastic. It is a great story that shows that, when we get it right, we can get broad audiences, underserved audiences and young audiences, and we can get them to watch on a schedule. It is doing quite an amazing job at that. In my job, I am looking for hits such as that from Scotland; I want to be commissioning our industry to make those big shows, too.
However, you are right that the big hits are not the only game in town. We have lots of shows that we commission because we think that they serve a particular purpose or will hit a particular audience. We will continue to do that. We are not commercial; we are a public service broadcaster.
A few minutes ago, you said that, because of your role, you go around the world and you meet Scottish independent producers on big stages, but what the small independents say to us is, “Yeah, but our work doesn’t get broadcast on the BBC.”
I think that a lot of their work does.
So you would contest what was said.
Nine out of 10 companies that I work with are in Scotland. There is no doubt that the market is changing, and I would say that the middle is being squeezed. We had quite a heritage in Scotland of making lots of unscripted middle-tariff shows, and there is no doubt that, to respond to audience taste, we are commissioning fewer of those, because we want to commission premium high-value shows.
I will take as an example “Highland Cops”, which is a brilliant factual show that gets a big audience on linear television as well as on iPlayer and does really well with a raft of audiences. That is the kind of show that we want to commission. Those shows absolutely get us around Scotland, and they are made in Scotland by Scottish producers. However, there are fewer of that kind of lower-cost unscripted show. We are not making so many of them now, because we need to invest in drama, comedy and premium factual shows.
On what is different about the BBC’s role from that of the streamers, for me, it is two things. One is that we need to reflect the lives of people in Scotland, whereas the streamers might come in and make only one show a year that does that. For example, “Dept Q” was a big success last year, which I am delighted about, because I do not want to be the only person making content in and about Scotland. However, we have to be in the game of making a volume of shows in which people feel that their lives in Scotland are reflected. That is one of the things that we do.
The other thing is that we cannot be the broadcaster of market failure—we need to make big hits. We need to make successful shows to bring people to the BBC for all the stuff that we do. If big hits were the only thing that we did, we would not invest in “Disclosure” or “Debate Night”, which are high-investment shows that require a large amount of money and take a lot of time to make. For example, for “Disclosure”, months and months are spent on individual pieces of journalism that are very valuable to us. What I really want to do is bring people to the BBC for whatever programming it is that they come for; they might not come for the news and current affairs or for the religious programming, but they will stay for it.
This time last year, I was not able to talk to the committee in a huge amount of detail about the football, but we now have the internationals, and we have seen that a big chunk of the people who had not come to the BBC on iPlayer for three months, for example—we call them “lapsed”—and who came in for the football came back within a fortnight for something else. I think that it was about a quarter of them.
Part of my strategy is that we bring in people for big-hitting dramas—we hope that they would come for our new Richard Gadd drama or our new legal drama, for example—and then they will see what else is available on the BBC when they are there and realise that it is worth their time.
09:00
It is interesting to hear you describe your strategy and I am grateful for your transparency on that.
You mentioned the TV licence. We have discussed this before and I do not want to go over old ground, but clearly there is a problem with a percentage of the population using BBC content but not paying the BBC licence fee. I am not aware of specific statistics for Scotland but, across the UK, there has been a fall-off in the number of people who are paying the licence fee. It would appear, from my anecdotal experience as well, that younger audiences do not seem to value the BBC sufficiently to wish to pay the BBC TV licence fee. What does your research tell you about younger people’s attitudes towards the whole idea of a universal TV tax to allow them to watch the BBC without fear of criminal prosecution?
We know that the vast majority of people in Scotland are licensed as they should be, and that is a fact. The vast bulk of people who require a licence have one.
But there is a growing minority who do not—
You may remember that, a few years ago, it was entirely legal to watch the iPlayer without a TV licence, and then the UK Parliament changed the law. When you log into iPlayer, it says, “You need a TV licence. Do you have one?” At the point at which we put that message in, people clicked through and bought a licence, so most people—
Did they?
Yes. There was a spike in licence fee sales at the point at which it became a legal requirement to watch the iPlayer with a licence.
I do not think that I have ever heard that before.
People generally want to operate within the law.
Yes, they absolutely do, but they also—
There is a cost of living crisis and we are completely aware of that. If people believe in public service broadcasting and if people believe that broadcasting is a public service, it is utterly vital to have reform of our funding. The BBC is really clear that we need reform of how we are funded.
Including the model, potentially.
Potentially.
Because the green paper suggests—
The green paper is from the United Kingdom Government. There is a range of options. It talks about reform of the licence fee, and there are ways to reform it. There are also other funding models, some of which we as a broadcaster have ruled out. We do not support advertising, partly because of the impact that it would have on the sector, which you have discussed.
There is already sponsorship on the BBC. I love the new year’s day concert from Vienna. It is sponsored by Rolex, and it is regularly mentioned in the bits between the music that the concert is sponsored by Rolex.
I am sure that the Vienna philharmonic benefits a lot from exactly that, but we do not support advertising on our services and we also do not believe in subscription.
I think that your question was about young people and their experiences—
I want to know what the BBC’s own research says about what under-35s think about the BBC TV licence.
We know that under-35s use the BBC a lot. I think that your question is, how do you get to a model?
No, my question is, what research has the BBC done into the attitudes of young people?
I come back to the fact that the majority of people are legally licensed.
That does not answer my question.
We recognise the need for reform, and that is for all audiences. We recognise that everyone—
So you have not done any research. Is that it?
Of course we talk to our audience all the time, but there is an active consultation at the moment with people around Scotland.
This is not a difficult question.
I am not going to lead the witness, but we do not think that subscription is the way ahead, precisely because it puts a barrier between us and young people, or us and the rest of our audiences, and the UK Government has said that direct taxation is not an option either.
Do not get me wrong—we absolutely recognise the need for reform. However, right now, I would not say where that should go, because there is an active consultation.
Yes, but ruling out different ways of funding the BBC at this stage might be—
One option potentially damages the sector, and the other puts your public content behind a wall. If you are a universal service, you should not be behind a wall.
That is a subjective point of view. I would now like to ask Hayley Valentine what research the BBC has done on the attitudes of under-35s to the BBC TV licence.
Mr Kerr, this will have to be your last question.
Oh, will it?
If there is time, I will try to bring you back in.
Okay, let us forget that question. I am being guillotined here—
Not for the first time.
No, not for the first time. If this is my final question, let me ask Hayley Valentine about autonomy in decision making and trust, because that theme has come up, and I have no doubt that it will come up again later. In our evidence sessions, a number of witnesses have said that the BBC is constrained, in editorial terms, by controls from London. I would like you to comment on that.
Another issue is the deficit of trust in the BBC brand in Scotland. The allegation or statement is that there is a more pronounced or distinct trust deficit in Scotland because of our political environment. Will you comment on both those issues? I am sure that colleagues will wish to ask you more questions about that.
I will be brief, if I can.
No, please do not be brief, because that only feeds into the—
Please give a full answer; Mr Kerr will let you answer.
I will be brief.
I do not recognise the idea that we are—I do not quite remember the words used—stymied by London.
Controlled or constrained.
I have no evidence of that at all. We run our own newsroom and I do not receive instructions from anyone on how to run it. As you know, we report without fear or favour. We cover exceptionally difficult stories and we take big editorial risks. We run a lot of live output. We are the only nation that has a regular debate programme—“Debate Night”. We hold those things dear. I cannot talk positively enough about our “Disclosure” brand and the work that we do there. It is not just about impactful television or journalism; it makes proper change in this country. The evidence is in what we do.
I apologise—what was the second half of the question about?
It was about the trust deficit and the idea that there is a distinctly Scottish dimension to the fact that people do not trust the BBC because of the political environment in Scotland.
I will start with the trust issue as a whole. Trust in mainstream media is declining overall. That is true across the world and we know, broadly speaking, why that is. However, the BBC remains highly trusted in comparison with other institutions in this country and abroad. Our news is the most trusted in the world. I am proud of things such as the World Service, which I used to work on. We can overplay the issue of trust.
Another thing to say is that people consume us in huge numbers. In Scotland, 83 per cent of the country consumes BBC content every week. That number goes up to 90-odd per cent every month. When people are asked which broadcaster they trust the most, we get almost 50 per cent of the total, and the next best gets something like 6 per cent. We can overplay the trust issue.
I am not going to pretend that we do not live in a polarised society where trust in mainstream media as a whole is on the decline. We have to work hard on that. I am pretty optimistic. I said this last year and, as we go into an election, I will say again that the trust scores for Scotland in particular went up between the two most recent general elections. According to Ofcom, the way in which the country views us is pretty stable in terms of reliability and trust scores. We are not on a massive decline; it is in the margins.
That is not to deny the culture that we live in. I live with a fairly hostile media all the time in Scotland. There are various divisive issues that we could all talk about at length but probably should not today, and I do not deny that Scotland has its particular issues. In that context, the BBC is holding up strongly on trust, and deservedly so.
Thank you. I think that I have run out of time.
You have. I have been very generous, given your excellent timekeeping, Mr Kerr. We will move on to Keith Brown.
It is worth saying at the start that I am a big supporter of the BBC, which might come as a surprise to some people. I am also a supporter of the licence fee. However, whether it is through the charter process or in other ways, we do see interference from Government. Of course, broadcasting remains reserved. Tim Davie fairly recently told us that he had four or five visits every week, with people from each of the two main parties beating a path to his door to complain about something or other. Scotland does not really feature in that. There is sometimes a feeling that the BBC is impervious to demands from Scotland for more balanced reporting.
I should say that one of our previous witnesses said that they had heard—I forget what evidence they quoted—that there seems to be a move among younger people to go back to things such as the BBC, teachers or parents. Rightly or wrongly, younger people see those as more stable and reliable, because of the whirlpool and diversity of the media that they can consume. There is a chance for the BBC to build on that through the licence fee.
I want to come back to the point about current affairs. I apologise to committee members, because I have mentioned this before, but the BBC in Scotland seems to have a pathological objection to covering reserved issues that impact on Scotland. For example, you have done I do not know how many investigative programmes on the ferries situation. That is fair enough, as it is legitimate news, but I do not think that the BBC in Scotland has done anything on the aircraft carriers, which were massively over budget and over time. Those were built in Scotland and had a major impact on the Scottish taxpayer. However, there seems to be a news blackout that comes with things like that.
Similarly, in the past, I have challenged both Martin Geissler and, going back in time, Gordon Brewer as to why there was not much more scrutiny of what we are told are the two Governments in Scotland. Both told me that they could not get UK representatives to come on their shows, which is not a reason not to cover those issues. There is an issue of balance, and it seems to be part of a deferential approach that the BBC in Scotland has to the UK. It would be interesting to hear comments on that.
Also, to live in a counterfactual universe for a minute, how, if at all, would the BBC in Scotland be different had broadcasting been devolved back in 1999?
That last question is an interesting one, but I will come to the first points first—let me think about that.
On Tim Davie and politicians, I have a couple of points. I do not want to speak for Tim Davie but, as far as I understand it, his door is open to all politicians all the time. We know that he has regular contact from Scottish politicians. I think that I have met all the party leaders at least once, if not more than once, and I have not turned down a meeting. If you want to talk to me about something, whether it is your perception or what other people are telling you about the BBC, my door is open. I have met a number of members one to one, and I am happy to do that whenever possible. I will absolutely make the time for it. It is very important to me, particularly at the moment, because we want your support as we head towards the charter renewal.
On the point about reserved issues, Gordon Brewer was around a while ago, and things are very different now. Since we launched our new “Radio Scotland Breakfast” programme, which Martin Geissler presents, we have had the secretary of state on a number of times, and we have had Rachel Reeves, Kirsty McNeill and Michael Shanks on the programme. It is different. There is not a pushback of politicians. We bid for politicians all the time, as you know. That is a big part of the programme’s remit.
Clearly, our remit is to cover the stories that have the biggest impact on our audience in Scotland, particularly with our radio services. The distinctiveness of Radio Scotland is absolutely about serving audiences in Scotland. I would have to look at the ferries issue and at specific stories on it, and at the aircraft carriers, but ferries are a massive story for our audience—they are literally a lifeline for our audience. We know that they use the ferries regularly. Some people use them for everything from getting to work to getting to the doctor or whatever, so that is really important to us. The aircraft carrier issue has been covered across network news, which is obviously available in Scotland as well.
I would have to look at the specifics of the issues, and I can come back to you on that. However, broadly speaking, our responsibility—particularly with programmes that are serving Scotland, and particularly with our news content—is to look at issues that we know that our audience wants us to cover. We are working in that area. For example, heading into the election, we will be using the your voice brand, which is a way for people in our audience to get in touch with us to ask us to cover the stories that they want us to cover that we might not know about. So far, we have covered issues from bus fares to a retiring ballet teacher in Edinburgh. We do a huge range of stories that we might not necessarily know about but that the audience brings to us. That is what we try to deliver on a daily basis.
Recently, we have had a lot of politicians who are part of the UK Government, not only the Scottish Government, on our programmes, so the situation has changed—if you asked him, I think that Martin Geissler would also tell you that it has changed.
09:15
In response to what the difference would be if broadcasting had been devolved, I do not know because it is a hypothetical question. I feel that we are doing a job for the people of Scotland. The industry has changed massively and we have tried to move with it. It is our job to keep up and ensure that we serve all our audiences. I regularly talk to the Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture and to a number of people who are in this room. If broadcasting had been devolved, I do not think that my role or how I carry it out would be any different.
The audience has told us that it wants us to be independent of Governments—plural—which is important. In the survey that we did last year, that was actually seen as more important by respondents in Scotland than by those in other parts of the UK.
Whether broadcasting is reserved or devolved is a matter for Parliaments and Governments. The BBC operates in the broadcasting environment that it finds itself in, but we made agreements with this Parliament and with the Senedd in Wales about 10 years ago to lay our annual report and accounts at those Parliaments, despite broadcasting being reserved. As BBC witnesses, we come to be scrutinised by this committee, which is quite right. Indeed, we work with the committee across the wider culture brief, which we would do whether or not broadcasting was devolved or reserved.
Relations are on-going—in fact, the director general, who was here last year, as you mentioned, is giving evidence at the Senedd in Wales today. There are on-going levels of dialogue, and I am sure that that would continue on either side of the coin if broadcasting was devolved.
Just to come in on that point, it is worth reflecting on the economies of scale that come with the operating model as it stands, particularly in how we reach content audiences in Scotland through our technology, distribution and content, much of which might be produced for the whole of the UK but from which Scottish audiences also benefit.
I have to say that I am less than convinced by the answer—I would not even say that it was an answer—that was given for why the BBC Scotland feels that it was not important to cover the aircraft carriers situation. The carriers were built in Scotland and the cost overruns were huge. I would have that thought that the fact that they did not actually work very well would also have been an issue. I suppose that we will have to differ, because I think that the BBC would be very different if broadcasting had been devolved.
It might be the case—I very much hope that it is—that we have another referendum on independence, depending on the outcome of elections and so on. If that is the case, how confident would you be that we would not see a rerun of what we saw in 2014, which was the importation of journalists en masse—not only by the BBC—including some Scottish journalists who for a long time had not been based in Scotland, to take over the coverage? Are you in a better place to resist that now? Would you want to resist it?
As some of you know, I worked on the referendum campaign in Scotland with Scottish journalists and Scottish presenters who are based here and continue to work for the BBC. To say that people were helicoptered in—that is the phrase that we used to use—is not a fair representation of the whole campaign. However, bearing that in mind, there has been a huge amount of change since 2014. Some people who will vote in the upcoming election were in primary school at that stage, and life has moved on massively since then, not least in the way that the BBC operates.
For example, for the election coming up, we are working closely with our network colleagues; they are not working separately from us. We have steering groups that are led by teams in each nation—there is also the Welsh election—which network colleagues attend, and we make shared decisions about coverage and our ambitions and plans for those elections. However, network news is a large beast, and network news meetings are on-going that involve huge representation from nations and at a Scotland level, so it works in both directions.
The way that we operate has completely changed in the past 15 years, not necessarily because of the referendum, but for a number of reasons: we collaborate better, we have a better pool of resources and we better understand how the nations work within the network news framework.
You will also see that a number of things have changed in Scotland since 2014. We appointed James Cook—whom I worked with during the referendum, when he was based in Scotland, and who is based in Scotland now—to lead our coverage of the election, alongside our political colleagues who work in this building.
There has definitely been a shift in how we operate. We will lead things from here: the editorial will be absolutely led from Scotland by me and my head of news. The relationships that we have with the network are much closer than they were 11 years ago. The quality of journalists that we have here means that everyone is confident that that will be led from here.
Looking at how we covered the general election in 2024—I know that we are not quite into election campaigning mode for this year—we have a track record of increasingly using journalists who are based wherever they are in the whole of the UK. In the most recent election, I was working in local BBC in England. Network news programmes, including the 6 o’clock news and 10 o’clock news, used the local political reporters from the region that they were reporting from on a nightly basis, because they are absolutely the experts in their field. The level of detail that they can go into on a story that will presumably have been rumbling on for months and years, and which they will have been covering in their local area for that length of time, will be far superior to that of anybody who might come up on the train for the day to report on a story.
The forthcoming election and another referendum, should there be one, will be huge stories, and that does not just involve the BBC. We would expect international media of all descriptions to come to Scotland to cover that.
I know that you were specifically asking about a referendum, Mr Brown, but, for this election coming, we would of course expect journalists from across the UK to come to Scotland to cover what is a really big story. I do not think that you would argue against that. The editorial lead on the story will come from here.
Our experiences of the referendum were probably quite different. I spent the last 10 hours of that campaign in the BBC studios and was interviewed a number of times by BBC journalists from outwith Scotland.
Leaving that aside, I will move to my last question. There was an excellent programme on BBC Four this week about John Logie Baird, which I learned a great deal from. One question that struck me was why that would come from BBC Four. Given the impact, both on the BBC and on society, of John Logie Baird’s invention—one of his inventions still to come is 3D TV—and the work of Alexander Graham Bell, why is BBC Scotland not at the forefront of talking about how those two inventors have changed the face of society? Why does it have to be BBC Four that would cover that? Would it not have been a perfect opportunity for BBC Scotland to have covered something like that?
BBC Four obviously has a remit to cover the whole of the UK, and that includes Scotland, so it is absolutely within its rights—and it should be showing programmes like that. Our scheduling teams work closely together. When we have programmes that we think will work for Scotland, we sometimes do deals together to share broadcast packages. That is how we would work together. You may see that programme coming on to BBC Scotland, but we would work with our network partners to plan the outings of our programmes—such as our Burns programme, for example. We work very closely with BBC Four on what it is doing with its Burns output. We are all trying to get the best programmes in the right place.
As I said earlier—Louise Thornton might have said it, too—we do not commission for channels any more; we commission for genres. We commission factual, entertainment, drama or news. We consider where those programmes will sit, and it will often be in multiple places.
It just seems that you have a very rich opportunity to cover some of the stuff that is native and unique to Scotland, such as the invention of televisions and telephones, through factual programming.
I will leave it at that, convener, as I know that time is pressing.
Good morning, everybody. I will address governance first. Some of the evidence that we have heard makes a strong case for a more decentralised model. To pick up on one of Hayley Valentine’s earlier comments, I do not think that the people who have made that case are bringing us specific instances where they think that the BBC in London has picked up the phone and told you to make an editorial decision differently. I do not think that they suggest that there is that level or nature of control. However, they do make the case that BBC Scotland would be stronger and better able to serve its specific audience if it had a more decentralised structure.
I do not think that it is just individuals. Even Screen Scotland, which is hardly likely to indulge in a conspiracist mindset, has made a case for stronger, effective governance involving the nations and regions throughout the UK, particularly Scotland—a more decentralised approach. I do not imagine that BBC Scotland will sit here and advocate for one particular model to come out of the charter review, but have you looked at what the options might be if this committee or the UK Government was to decide that charter renewal would involve some degree of greater decentralisation? What would work and what would not? Are there models that you have considered that would be more or less effective than others?
I will speak briefly on that, and then I will hand over to Luke McCullough, because he looks at governance issues as part of his day job.
The BBC has gone through various governance structures, and the structure is absolutely up for debate and change. For me, it works really well. I have worked with two non-executive directors. As I say, I spent a year in BBC Local and now I lead BBC Scotland, and having a non-executive director in each of those instances has given me support when I needed it. They did not get involved editorially and they have not done anything that made me feel uncomfortable. We have our director of nations, who sits on the BBC executive committee, and we have strong representation through that. We work well as more than the sum of our parts. How it works at the moment means that I am not desperate for change, because what happens works well for me.
Luke, do you want to talk about the broader conversations that are going on?
As Patrick Harvie said, there is an active question about the governance of the BBC in the UK Government’s green paper. The UK Government probably favours some models over others, and, as Patrick Harvie said in his question, I would be cautious about advocating for one over another. However, I recognise that it is a live discussion and that the BBC has experience of different governance models from having governors at one point and then the BBC Trust. We are now independently regulated by Ofcom and, in Scotland, we have a direct relationship with the regulator. We speak to Ofcom Scotland and Screen Scotland regularly.
A lot of the ways in which we operate are as the public broadcaster of Scotland, and I am not entirely sure what would change if the governance changed. I am not clear what people are seeing on a day-to-day basis not happening now that they would see happening in the future. It is a conversation worth having, but I am not sure that I see a pressing need for change.
One of the issues that is being considered at the UK level is the politicisation of appointments, and I am quite open about the fact that I hope that politically appointed individuals are removed and that we do not have such a process in the future.
However, the point about decentralisation is slightly separate from that. If there was to be a move in the direction of some form of greater decentralisation, I would be a bit surprised if BBC Scotland did not have a view on how that could be made to work and what would be a successful model of delivering that, as opposed to an unsuccessful one.
It is important that we hear the voice of the audience in Scotland, and we do a lot of that anyway. We hold a lot of virtual sessions at which we literally hear what people in Scotland think about our output, what they think we should be doing and what they think we should not be doing under the current model. I am not sure what bit of that is centralised that people would like to be decentralised. None of the three people here, who are based in Scotland, reports to anybody in London. There seems to be a view of what the model is versus the reality. Maybe we need to get better at explaining that.
I do not want to devalue listening to the audience, but the audience will be focused on what they see and hear in the output rather than what they know about the structure.
To turn to quotas, the DCMS has said that it is open to some variation or change to quotas of production. Have you looked at what would serve the interests of the Scottish broadcasting and production sectors more effectively? There have been some long-standing criticisms and we have heard evidence that there is a general desire for change, but it does not necessarily alight on a single model of designating output as particularly Scottish or on how production can benefit the wider sector.
There are a couple of things to say. Clearly—I hope that this comes across—I am incredibly ambitious for BBC Scotland. As Louise Thornton will tell you, production companies are not short of good ideas, which they bring to us, and we are not short of really good scripts. It is true that we could make more content than we do. However, I think that, within the BBC’s financial constraints, we do pretty well, particularly through the model of attracting third-party finance, which is really going to front load things in the future.
09:30
We do not set the quotas; those are set by Ofcom, and it is a matter for Ofcom if it wishes to change them. However, in the past year, we have announced that we will work more within the spirit than to the letter of the quotas—I think that that was the phrase that was used. We will only by exception have programmes that are made in Scotland that qualify on only one criterion, and we are front loading the spend criteria so that more money is invested into the sector in Scotland. That is our ambition.
That is not to say that we will never do anything that hits only one of the criteria in the quotas as they currently stand. At present, around 90 per cent of our programme choices meet at least two of the criteria, so the new approach will not be a massive change for us. Nevertheless, we will now be looking at it through an “only by exception” lens. That is where we currently are.
There was a second part to your question on quotas, was there not? I forget what it was.
I do not remember a second part either.
Essentially, the case is made that there is a degree of need for change, as there are long-standing criticisms, but there seems to be no consensus on a particular model or variation of change.
You would be open to working with a more ambitious set of quotas, if that is what was decided—
Yes, absolutely. If someone decides that a bigger percentage of the BBC budget is to be spent in Scotland, I will not struggle to spend it. We beat all our quotas at the moment; we are not living in a world where we are doing just the minimum.
When we were before the committee last year, we talked a little bit about the floor versus the ceiling, and I do not have a ceiling. At present, the quota for—
Is it fair to suggest that, if there was to be a more ambitious approach, BBC Scotland itself—to link back to the earlier question about decentralisation—would need a bigger budget in order to be able to achieve more? Would the BBC need to push spending out more?
Yes. When we mentioned decentralisation previously, we were talking about governance at that stage—
Yes, but there is a financial aspect to it.
Yes. I would also welcome having more senior leaders and more commissioning power in Scotland.
As we have talked about with the committee both today and in our evidence session last year, we have a lot of successful models around the commissioning model. I think that we have a model that others can look to. That is the case with drama and comedy in particular, where we have Scotland-specific commissioners who work with Louise Thornton and network commissioners who work to network genres. Both sets of commissioners are based in Scotland, working closely together on some projects and separately on other projects. That is a very effective model for the direction of travel. If we could replicate it further, I would be happy with that. Nevertheless, you are right that it would require more money.
Can I ask you to contrast some of the comments that you have just made with the pushback that has been received around changes to Radio Scotland’s late-night output? You will be well aware of some of the criticisms. The Scottish Music Industry Association has described the changes as
“a significant withdrawal of vital support for Scotland’s artists”
and
“the erosion of a dedicated, culturally rooted space in the schedule where Scottish artists ... can be discovered, contextualised and championed.”
The argument has been put to us that there is a shift to replace what is described as “discovery” music programming, which introduces audiences to something new and creative, with what is described as “easy listening”. Can you respond to that and say how it relates to your comment about wanting to be ambitious and risk taking in your output?
And distinctive—that is the thing here. I am sorry, but this answer will not be particularly quick.
Since I took over this job, I have been looking at all our services, and I am looking for growth. To go back to the question about the licence fee, we need to make sure that people in Scotland are finding content that they find valuable, interesting and worth spending their time with.
Radio, in particular, had not changed terribly much in quite a number of years, for very good reasons. We were in the middle of a digital revolution and we had launched a television channel, and the radio station had been in a bit of a decline. It is not that long ago that Radio Scotland—Scotland’s national radio station—had a million listeners, but, when I took over, it was down to around 800,000: we had lost about a fifth of those listening.
I took the view, therefore, that we needed to do a number of things. It was not a crisis, but we do not wait for things to become a crisis before we change them. We looked at our breakfast output—as you will know, we have made some recent changes to that. We looked at areas where we thought that we could bring in new talent. That is a big part of our strategy: we need to develop people and bring in new talent, but that will not happen around our breakfast show, for example; it will happen at other points in the schedule. Finally, we looked at the areas where—to be frank—the audience decline needed to be stopped. We were looking at really small numbers for a couple of shows, and the late-night schedule was not attracting the share of the audience that we would expect it to get at that time. I am talking about the share of the available audience; I understand that late-night audiences will be smaller.
In my view, we made a relatively small schedule change. Clearly, it has attracted a lot of noise, as every change that we make does. We put the programmes out to tender and announced new presentation and a new schedule across the week. I brought in a new head of audio and events to look after the radio station, because that was important to me alongside our events criteria and our events schedule. The other thing that is important in radio, as you will know, is that we have some kind of coherence across the week. We know that people listen for personality and for the warmth and energy of a particular presenter.
That is kind of it—we have not changed our music policy at all. I totally understand that we are always going to make a small number of people unhappy if we change the schedule, because we do not wait until we have zero listeners. We know that, unfortunately, some people are unhappy when we make all sorts of changes, such as the changes that we have talked about at committee in the past.
I do not know what the answer to this is, but there is always a gap between when something is announced and when it starts. We do not announce programmes on the day that we start them. In that gap, in this case, some misinformation grew around our support for the Scottish music sector—
What was that misinformation?
It was that we are pulling away from the Scottish music sector and not supporting Scottish artists and new artists, and that, somehow, we are moving to an automated playlist. There are actually only four hours of our schedule—during the day, from 10 to 12 and from half past 1 to half past 3 in the afternoon—when we have a playlist, and it is not made by a machine; it is made by an individual. Our playlist is three times as big as the playlists of our commercial rivals.
I will ask you to focus on the specific point, because I know that we are tight for time. Are you telling us that, as a result of these changes, there will be at least the same number of, or more, hours of what would be called genuinely free-form, late-night music discovery?
I appreciate the point about protecting audience numbers and trying to drive them up, but that is not the only consideration here—
No, absolutely not—
It is about giving emerging artists a platform and the opportunity to be found and to be heard.
Yes—I am telling you that there is no change. We have done a bit of research of our own, because it is important to us that we monitor new output. That research shows that, between the last week of the old schedule, in December, and the first two weeks of the new schedule, the number of Scottish artists and the number of new Scottish artists have remained broadly the same. We are looking across the piece for growth and for bigger numbers—to make more of our audience think that we are, to be frank, worth tuning into. I would argue that a new and emerging Scottish artist in that space would get a bigger audience. There is limited point in artists going on programmes that are in decline if they are not getting a big audience there.
In response to your specific question, I am absolutely telling you that. We are not playlisting and we are not reducing the number of Scottish artists. That would not make any sense to us. We support more specialist music programmes than any other network does, including “Travelling Folk”, “Take the Floor” and “Pipeline”. We support a lot of specific, specialist Scottish programmes.
Our daytime schedule is more mainstream, but, at that point in the day, 25 per cent of our music tracklist is still Scottish, and in the late-night schedule we will carry on supporting Scottish artists. What you have suggested is not the change that we have made.
I think that there is a slight mischaracterisation of what was on air before. I heard Natasha Raskin Sharp’s last show, for example, while I was going about my business: there was Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Crosby, Stills & Nash, the Ramones and a choir from New York. That is not new and emerging Scottish talent.
In our new schedule, we have Roddy Hart, who knows the music scene in Scotland like the back of his hand, presenting two new programmes. There is more Roddy Hart than there was; he is now on at the weekend, on Saturday and Sunday.
What may have caused some of the confusion is the procurement exercise. Some of the programmes are made for us by independent producers; they are not made by the BBC. It is quite right that we engage with the independent sector in Scotland. That procurement was for the weekday output, and we make the weekend content in-house. We, the BBC, are making Roddy Hart’s content—the procurement exercise was for the new programme during the week. That is possibly where some of the confusion has come from.
Is there time for one more question, deputy convener?
Very quickly, with a very quick response.
Okay. I was going to move on to something else substantive, so I will leave it there.
Good morning. I want to follow up on Patrick Harvie’s last question with regard to radio. Hayley Valentine, did you say that there is not a playlist? That has been one of the big issues out there: it has been said that you are moving to a playlist.
For 70 per cent of our music programming, there is no playlist. The music is selected either by specialist producers who work on the programmes or—as in the case of Bryan Burnett’s programme, which is my own favourite programme—by the audience. The rest is our more mainstream daytime output—we play roughly four tracks an hour between 10 and 12 and between half past 1 and half past 3.
I think that when people talk about a playlist, they mean that someone presses a button on an electronic jukebox, but that is not the case. We brought in a music scheduler to refine our playlist, which has something like 1,200 tracks. The tracks are chosen by an individual who understands our audience and by our new head of audio and events, in collaboration, and, in any given hour, you should hear at least one Scottish track.
I heard you talk earlier—I think that it was you—about mandating the playing of Scottish music. I do not think that we need to do that, because we are already playing masses of it. In the programmes across all our evening and weekend schedules in particular, there is no playlisting, but the playlisting in our other programming is not done by a machine.
There is some confusion there. The minute that you talk about playlisting, people start thinking about some of the virtual broadcasters that record a show 24 hours before with the presenter, and it involves literally pressing a button and songs come out.
Yes—that is not the case for us. We do not have that anywhere in our schedule.
In broadcasting, and in radio in particular, there has been a concern over the years that there has been a pullback, not so much from the BBC but more from the commercial side. However, it is now hugely competitive for you all because, on the commercial side, Global Media & Entertainment, which left Scotland, has now come back with two radio stations, and STV Radio has just been launched.
Luckily for me, I seem to be part of the demographic that Radio Scotland and STV Radio are going for, so I am quite enjoying radio at the moment. However, it is quite competitive, and BBC Radio Scotland needs to remain competitive. I was going to ask about the reduction in listeners from 1 million to 800,000. That is quite a drop, and you had to do something to change that. If you took football away from Radio Scotland, that would take quite a lot of those 800,000 listeners away as well.
I could talk about radio all day—as you know, I am passionate about radio.
We talk about linear television and the drop-off in numbers, and why we are concentrating on our digital services, but radio is not in decline. There is a fight to be won, and there is a market for radio overall. The number of listening hours is not going down.
You are absolutely right: the competition in Scotland is fierce, because we are competing against not only other Scottish services—many of which, as you said, are commercial—but services in the rest of the UK. A decent number of people in Scotland listen to the “Today” programme or to Radio 2, and that is quality content. We have to find a way for Radio Scotland, which is the only national radio station, to compete for and attract an audience.
We can talk about the importance of age demographics, but I do not adhere to that quite as much as some others in my industry. I think that it is about tone of voice: we attract people because we have a certain tone of voice, and they come to us for warmth and inclusivity. Yes, we were doing a lot of news on Greenland this morning, but people come to us because Radio Scotland is the place where they will hear a distinctively Scottish news output and conversation. It is the place where that conversation should happen. They will hear distinctively Scottish music and culture, and distinctively Scottish sport.
The trick in all that is not easy to pull off. It is to take all those different genres across a national radio station—which, by definition, includes all the opts that we have for the various parts of the country, looking after specific audiences—and bring it all together through something that feels like it is a warm, inclusive, distinctive, respectful identity-based tone of voice.
In our radio programming, we are not looking for 25-year-old listeners; we accept that they are probably going elsewhere. However, we think that, across a really broad age demographic, we can bring people back in, because we are now offering our service in a way that we had not previously been doing.
That can involve simple things. For example, our new head of audio and events has worked hard to get our presenters to talk to each other and about each other’s shows in a way that feels authentic and real. You can hear that—you can hear the difference. They are talking up each other’s shows in a way that makes you think that they have actually listened to them, because they have.
09:45
I quite like the chattiness, because if I wanted just to listen to music, I would put on Spotify or some other streaming service. I enjoy the chat—I know that some people have complained about the chattiness on the flagship news show in the morning, but I personally prefer it.
I have a general question. You mentioned sport just now because I mentioned it, but you also mentioned it in your opening remarks. It is great that Scotland football games are now shown on the BBC. What are the long-term ideas for that? Into the future, there will be an opportunity to bid for other qualifying games. Are you going to look to keep those games?
There is disappointment at the Commonwealth games leaving the BBC for the first time and going to TNT Sports, behind a paywall. For me, watching athletics, the Commonwealth games is the only time that I have a team to support, so that move is disappointing. How did we end up in that position?
I will start with the football. We have the football up until, and including, the world cup. We are currently working on our world cup plans, and we are very ambitious for those. We want to cover not only the games taking place in America but the bringing together of people around the world cup as a national event in this country. A lot of our reporting will be in Scotland—we treat these events as things that bring the nation together; they work like nothing else.
As you know, I worked pretty hard, and pushed very hard, for the Scotland rights. As I said earlier, that has paid off in the numbers of people, not only in Scotland but across the whole UK, watching the Scotland team, and the numbers of people who will come to us for something like a Scotland game and then stay for something else. As part of the wider strategy of bringing people into the BBC, it has really worked, and I am ambitious to carry on with that. We are not in those conversations yet, but I will be ambitious to keep the Scotland games on free-to-air television—
But you told us previously that you had to get buy-in from the BBC centrally in order to do that.
Yes, and that is part of the argument. We were arguing in theory previously that screening Scotland games would be a good thing for the whole of the UK, and we had match funding, with both Scotland money and network money going into the Scotland games. The evidence is that it has paid off in terms of raw numbers for the whole of the UK. Huge numbers of people have been watching the Scotland games. Recently, a friend who was up from London said to me that he got his kids out of bed and said, “This is the best football match I’ve ever watched—you need to get up and watch it.” He is a Londoner living in London.
I think that the argument on that is won, but there is also the financial aspect. Let us not pretend that the BBC is in a great financial position: everything that we do means that we stop doing something else in order to pay for it. We will have to find the money, so I am not guaranteeing anything, but you know where my ambitions lie.
On the Commonwealth games, I was very disappointed—I am a sport fan and I think that the games are great for our audiences. As you said, the Commonwealth games are one of the few events where people get to wear the Scotland jersey to represent their country. However, it is a competitive world and we were outbid—that is the straightforward nature of it. I hope that TNT makes a brilliant job of it for the audience, and I hope that you, and all the other sports fans in Scotland, get to see as much of the Commonwealth games as possible. I wish TNT all the luck in the world, but that does not mean that I am not disappointed, because I am.
We will still cover the Commonwealth games as much as we can. There is an open conversation: the Commonwealth games are listed as a category B event in Ofcom’s “Code on Sports and Other Listed and Designated Events”, so there is a conversation about highlights to be had, as the highlights have to be on free-to-air television. I do not know what TNT’s plans are in that regard, but the highlights will have to be somewhere on free-to-air. We do not yet know whether TNT is going to make them free to air or talk to another broadcaster. Across the piece, the conversations are not quite over, but we will make sure that we cover the Commonwealth games.
For a Scottish audience—away from the live events, which are obviously a big deal—that sort of coverage is often the place where they discover new talent and learn about new athletes coming through. We will cover the ones to watch as the Commonwealth games approach, and we will do nightly slots about the games on our news programmes with as much footage as we can have. The back story of the parents who have taken their kid to the swimming pool at 5 in the morning for 20 years, or whatever it might be, is often what grabs the nation’s attention, and we will do as much of that as we can.
Okay.
On television production, you previously told the committee that it was your ambition for every regional network production to qualify for a quota on at least two criteria; I think that you mentioned that earlier today as well. However, that has not been the case so far. Why is that?
We are very tight for time, so can we have very succinct answers?
I will try my best.
As I said, up to about 90 per cent of our quota is made up of programmes that qualify on at least two criteria, so those that do not are very much the minority. Is that right? I am not misquoting anything.
That is correct.
We have made public announcements about the fact that it is only by exception that we will accept programmes that qualify on only one criteria.
The previous time that you were before the committee, you mentioned the new dramas that you were commissioning. “Counsels” is produced by Balloon Entertainment in London and “Grams” is produced by World Productions in London. Will they hit at least two of the criteria to qualify in Scotland?
Yes. I think that they have bases in Scotland—Balloon certainly has a base here—so they qualify on all three criteria.
They both have bases here. The originator of “Vigil” works for World Productions (Scotland) and lives and works in Scotland, and the executive producer of “Counsels” lives and works in Scotland.
So they qualify on all three, then?
Yes. “Counsels” is in production and we are very excited about it. It is employing hundreds of people and has a cast of 90. There was nervousness about whether we would support new talent, but the six leads in “Counsels” are young actors, so it is bringing through new talent. It is filming in lots of different locations, including in studios and out and about across Scotland.
Is that the one that Mhairi Black is in?
Yes.
If I do not win in the election, can I bid for a place?
You can audition in the same way that Mhairi did.
That is probably the opportunity to move on.
Good morning. On the changes to the Radio Scotland schedule, which I have raised previously in the committee and with the BBC, I welcome the assurances about the importance that Radio Scotland places on emerging Scottish artists and on maintaining the number of hours. On the issue of listening to the voice of the audience, it is fair to say—it has been raised with me—that the presenters and shows are much valued by their listeners. I know that the BBC will keep under review how the schedule changes develop and pan out.
I want to ask about the fact that the BBC funds local democracy reporters. We talked at the start about the importance that the BBC places on local news and the events in the north-east and the Highlands, for example in relation to the recent weather. Those reporters are funded by the BBC but employed by local or regional news organisations. The purpose of the scheme
“is to provide impartial coverage of the regular business and workings of local authorities in the UK, and other relevant democratic institutions”.
There are 165 reporters across the UK; I do not know how many of them are in Scotland. As you said at the start, the BBC is our most trusted news source. How can we ensure that BBC Scotland has enough locally based journalists to maintain that high standard of accuracy for Scottish audiences?
We recently had STV here talking about its cuts to regional news. It has specialist news programmes for STV North and regional variations. STV is looking to cut the number of journalists that it has and has claimed that it will provide more content with fewer journalists—I struggle to see how that will be the case. When it comes to the BBC’s journalist base and the local democracy reporters, how will you maintain the level of local news coverage?
Luke McCullough is better at the numbers, but I think that we have 21 local democracy reporters in Scotland.
Generally speaking, there is one local democracy reporter for every two local authorities across the UK. However, in Scotland, partly because of the geography, we upped the investment from the average and there are about 21 for the 32 local authorities.
It is one of the things that we are discussing in relation to the charter, because we know that audiences want more local news. In a world where there are lots of news providers, from Facebook groups up to national broadcasters, hyper-local news is becoming more and more of a thing, and we are absolutely committed to covering that.
We are looking at whether we should expand the number of local democracy reporters. It is an interesting conversation on which we have not come to firm conclusions. I heard John McClellan say that there was a risk in Scotland in moving them into, for example, court reporting, because we do not want to undermine our really active court agency service. We will look at where we think that it is useful to increase the number of local democracy reporters; for the sake of the next charter, we are certainly open to more of that sort of model.
As I have said, it is an on-going conversation. As you know, we have, I think, 60 or 70-odd apprentices at the moment, who spend their apprenticeships in different BBC departments. We are discussing the possibility that the apprentices spend some of their time with externals. Working with other organisations would benefit them, undoubtedly, as well as us, and support the broader sector in certain ways. There is obviously some risk to it—if you send your reporters to work in the Daily Mail and they start writing stories about you, for example, it is not perfect.
How we support the local sector is an important part of our responsibilities. That is where I am on that point, with some caution that we do not want to undermine an active sector such as the court sector in Scotland. We are absolutely talking about the matter and about having a more open approach to how we work with other organisations.
On STV, I previously said publicly that I take no pleasure in the cuts at STV at all. It is very good for us to have active competition across the whole of the country. Several of our best journalists are in our Aberdeen newsroom, for example, and they have come through the STV system. We work closely with them on things such as pooling, and we have all sorts of active relationships with STV in the north. I recognise and understand the dilemma of making more content with fewer journalists, and I feel STV’s pain. However, we are not about to replicate that. We are absolutely committed to being outside of the central belt in all of our regions. As I said at the beginning, we have 14 bases, 12 of which have journalists in them, which we are committed to keeping.
Thank you very much. I think that that concludes the questions for today.
I know that we do not have time to get another question answered, but may I flag one issue and ask whether BBC Scotland would write to us on it?
Of course, very briefly.
We did not have time to discuss the deal that was announced about providing BBC content on YouTube. I have two particular concerns. First, YouTube is taking more audience share than the BBC now, for the first time. Is there a danger that the deal would simply enrich the offer of a rival rather than benefit the BBC?
Secondly, BBC content would be presented alongside whatever YouTube’s algorithm throws at people, including extremism, and far-right and conspiracy content. Presenting BBC content in that context could degrade trust in the BBC’s output. I know that we do not have time to get into an answer, but I would be very grateful if you were willing to write to us on those issues.
We really do not have time, because we have another panel, so your writing to us will be appreciated.
I thank everybody again for their contributions. We will take a short break before the other panel.
09:58
Meeting suspended.
10:03
On resuming—