Chamber and committees

:Indeed—I agree with Mr Kerr.

09:00

:It is a bit of a case of being out of sight, out of mind. Imagine that one is a senior BBC executive who works out of London and, because broadcasting is reserved, regularly gives evidence before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in the House of Commons. That committee does not have a single member from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland sitting on it; it hardly has any members from outside London or the south-east of England.

:Of course it changes. However, at the present time, the BBC and broadcasting are reserved and, in a parliamentary context, broadcasters are answerable to a House of Commons committee in which there is literally no lived experience of what broadcasting is like in the nations of the United Kingdom outside England. I have also given a perfect example of how the UK Government will ignore things, even when they are highlighted to it.

If broadcasting were to be devolved, things would change in the same way as they have changed in areas that are presently devolved. I was joking with a member of this committee in the canteen this morning about the regularity of my attendance at the committee, and I said that, if broadcasting were devolved, the committee would no doubt regularly have BBC decision makers and others in broadcasting in front of it—and rightly so.

I know that Mr Kerr has playfully teed up the idea that this matter relates to “Woman’s Hour” on the BBC, but I hope that he would concede that it is a much broader issue than that. We are talking only about news, but there is a much wider issue of holding BBC decision makers to account in relation to how the BBC as an organisation is organised, its head count and the direction of travel.

:Can I give Mr Kerr a specific and last example, if he is coming to the end of what he is saying?

:That is it. How many meetings does one want to have in which one has no power over anything and—surprise, surprise—it does not change? That is why decision making needs to move.

:I totally agree with Mr Harvie’s characterisation of the fragmented media landscape in the UK. I also agree that there is much that is outdated. However, there is also an inability or difficulty in relation to the fact that the advances in technology are so rapid and the intergenerational gulf in what one sees, consumes and is interested in is so wide but the decision makers tend to come from the older end of the age spectrum rather than being younger people. In fairness, that is a big challenge not just in a Scottish or UK context but internationally.

Younger people, in television terms—again, I am using an outdated term—do not watch a television. They certainly do not watch linear television and—as we know, because Ofcom has reported it and we can all see it—they get most of the content that they view on screens from elsewhere, not from public service broadcasters. That is why the likes of the BBC are making baby steps in having a presence on sites such as YouTube. They realise that you have to go where the audience is going.

:Sorry—I will just finish the point, Mr Harvie, to perhaps get a bit closer to the question. I have a concern that all of us who have an interest in this area are trying to find ways to regulate and legislate, and understand, something that is moving so much quicker than our ability to do those things.

09:15

Mr Harvie ended his observation by talking about the likes of AI. That is just turbocharging the equivalent of Moore’s law in the area of digital, online and screen: what we would traditionally have talked of as television. He is absolutely right to say that we should not lose sight of the fact that the challenge is much bigger than a public service broadcaster, but I will offer one last thought on that. The BBC is the only public service broadcaster for which we pay a licence fee, and we therefore have a particular interest in making sure that that public service broadcaster—which, although it is not as dominant as it was, is still very important—is everything that it could and should be.

:I agree with Mr Brown. Unfortunately, I do not think that we will have enough time to go through the phenomena that are the BBC’s shortcomings. However, the BBC acknowledged that it is a significant-enough problem that it commissioned a major report. To go back to how one might drive some cultural change in the matter, it agrees that two things need to happen.

First, the BBC needs to get designations right in news and all other programmes. Once one has designations right, one will be able to reflect on the fact that the news content is totally out of whack and the fact that something that happens in one of the other nations of the UK passes the bar of being newsworthy only if it has a direct or indirect impact in England. That is surely absolutely and totally unacceptable for any listener or viewer here in Scotland, in Wales or Northern Ireland.

I appreciate that it is very difficult when 85 per cent of the population is of one nation in this multinational state. It is not simple for the BBC and I have said to the corporation that it will not get it right all the time but it has to do a lot better than it currently does. Ultimately, the only solution is for there to be decision making here, in Wales and in Northern Ireland.

The BBC will have to take the issue a lot more seriously because, if it does not, more people will raise questions about why they are paying a licence fee for misinformation. That is what it is. It is misinformation and misreporting.

:First of all, we need to appreciate how good it is. Mr Adam has pointed to a number of top-quality aspects of both commercial and public service radio. I would say that it is more than top quality; indeed, I have said so to Hayley Valentine and Tim Davie. On a Saturday, BBC Radio Scotland’s sports coverage, from “Off the Ball” to “Open All Mics”, is world class. I know of no other national broadcaster that does what BBC Scotland does in covering the major league, and others, at the same time—and literally with open mics. I have not heard of that happening in any other country.

:Yes. I will regret not mentioning Channel 5, although I do not watch that on linear output either.

However, my point is not an unfair characterisation. We have the linear issue, and then we have a BBC Scotland channel that is available on linear television but is not number 1, and we have all that at this moment of change, as we move towards much more of an on-demand situation. We know that to be true, because we know what the streamers do. We tell them where we are, through the geographical locator, and they also begin to learn our viewing habits. Mr Bibby might be into sport and Mr Halcro Johnston might be into opera or whatever it is.