Chamber and committees

My first point is about the BBC charter. Rightly or wrongly, we all feel a bit more invested in the BBC because of its longevity and how it is funded. You said that political interference would be a bad thing. I am thinking about what people might perceive as political interference, for example, in relation to the charter renewals over a number of years. The licence fee has undoubtedly been the subject of such interference. The unanimous view of this panel of witnesses and, I think, all previous panels, is that we all want to see a strong BBC and a licence fee. Having said that, I agree that, for young people in particular, the licence fee will be accepted if it is deemed to be of value and relevant to them, which is an important consideration.

On the issue of news, it is interesting that, although all the politicians here have had their issues with the BBC, very few have had an issue with STV. I could be wrong, but it seems that STV does not attract the same kind of political attention. If we look at what is proposed at STV North, maybe that has not helped.

The issue with the political aspect is that it is more about what the BBC in Scotland does not cover than what it does. It seems to have an aversion to covering reserved issues that impact on Scotland as opposed to devolved issues. For example—it is probably best to give an example—we have had documentaries ad nauseam about the situation with the two ferries in Scotland, but two aircraft carriers were built in Scotland and that attracted virtually no attention from the BBC in Scotland. They were more than three times over budget and went massively over their timescale, but there was no coverage of that. The cost of that dwarfed the cost of the ferries. I have been raising this issue with individuals going as far back as Gordon Brewer, but the response seems to be that the BBC cannot get UK ministers to come on to programmes to answer questions.

I am interested in what Paul McManus said about Finland and disinformation. I said to some previous witnesses that most politicians here will do talks to modern studies pupils at school, and they are very often asked, “How do I know what to trust in what I see?” However, I think that it is more about what they do not get to see and to know about, and that is pervasive.

We had Mark Davie at our—is that his name?

Emily, do you want to come back in on that?

I have a final question on that last point. I have mentioned this before, and I am not sure that I am getting the point across well. Somebody else—I think it was the deputy convener—said something about watching TV at Christmas. It was a case of 57 channels and nothing on, in the words of the Bruce Springsteen song. There are lots of channels, and there is apparently a lot of diversity, but there are an awful lot of repeats.

Given that it is a global market, and given how dependent we are—even if we lose the IP—on people such as Paramount, Disney and Netflix and how valuable they can be if they decide to do something in Scotland, is it not the case that, especially in the light of the “River City” closure, we would benefit from establishing a base of engineers, production assistants, broadcasting people, writers and so on that everybody would contribute to? That is probably a question for Screen Scotland. That way, if those footloose multicountry companies wanted to do something in Scotland, they would know that all the expertise was already here.

That would be difficult to arrange. It is a diverse sector, and such an approach would require people to give up some control. That is the way that Ireland would do it. I am not saying that it does that in this context, but it does it in many other contexts. That would involve taking a team Scotland approach, which would mean that there would always be a bank of production assistants, directors of photography and so on available. The BBC would probably be the biggest player in that, but others could be part of it, too.

I do not know whether I am getting this point across well, but surely we want to sell ourselves in the best possible way to attract other big productions, if possible. Currently, if international production companies decide to come here—it is a very competitive market—they bring their own people from elsewhere. However, if they knew that we had top-class people in Scotland—sound engineers and all the rest of it—would that not increase Scotland’s attractiveness?

I cannot see how anybody could say that it is impartial, but we will leave that aside.

On the substantive question about the STV licence, when you first spoke, you quite rightly talked about various pressures in relation to how audiences are moving. I understand that point and do not disagree with it.

However, the point is that the licence was agreed months before STV sought to, in my view, completely change it. Glenn Preston provided a bit of an explanation for that, saying, “That might’ve happened two years ago, but it doesn’t matter what the licence renewal is; you are obliged to agree to what was previously agreed”, or words to that effect—I do not know exactly what the phrase was. Can you see why the public has absolutely no trust in the process? I am not saying that it is necessarily Ofcom’s fault, if the way that the Government has set it up is that you can only agree what was previously the licence.

On what you said about the way the audience is changing and trying to make sure that STV is sustainable, I note that that change has not just happened in the past few months; it has been going on for years—everyone has seen that. Do you understand why there is a complete lack of trust in the process among the public, who will expect that, when a licence is agreed, that will be that for the 10-year period, or at least a substantial part of it, rather than for a few months before it is completely changed?

11:15

Looking at how fundamentally STV is seeking to change it, and given what the public has a right to expect, I cannot see how you can do anything other than reject, at least substantially, what STV intends to do. Otherwise, you will just lose public trust.

I know that we are short of time, convener, so I will leave it at that.

Tim Davie, yes. He said that, every week, his door was opened by five or six Labour and Tory people, berating him for some content, and that closeness in London is what drives that agenda.

Scotland also loses out by not having as powerful a say on that agenda. I am talking about news broadcasting in particular. I am interested in any views on that and on what might help the BBC to resist continuing political interference.

We are interested in ferries, by the way—I am not saying that we are not interested in the ferries.

I return to the idea of quotas.

This will mortify my children, but I have never watched “The Traitors”. Last night, on my family’s WhatsApp group, there were 32 different interactions about the latest episode. My kids and their partners are all obsessed by it, but I have never watched it. I hear the objections to its being imposed on BBC Scotland and now being used by the BBC to justify what it does here, but it is hugely successful and is being exported all over the shop. The point was also made that “River City” will be finishing, which is another issue that the committee has discussed.

I am not sure that there is a huge deal of confidence that Ofcom will do the right thing in holding the BBC to account to ensure that there is more Scotland-based activity. Is there an agreed standard in the industry for what people would like to see as quotas for Scotland? Is there a way of defining the quotas, or are people happy with the current definition that is used, as long as it is used well, which might be the case with Channel 4 but not so much with the BBC? Is there a proposal that people in the industry agree would serve Scotland well?

I do not know whether it still does this, but I have mentioned before that Canada had a requirement whereby, whether on radio or TV, a certain proportion of output had to be Canadian. That was because it is right next to the powerhouse that is the United States. That seemed to be accepted by everybody. Within that, I think that it also had French-language quotas, but I could be wrong. The French, too, are very good at that. Would hard quotas not be a good thing for Scotland?

I took it from your answer to my second question that there would be no merit in trying to put together an offer that was inclusive of all the different interests in Scotland that could be marketed to appeal to international companies? If that is the case, I am more than willing to hear it.

On your point about our having the technicians and so on, the committee has previously heard, in a different inquiry, that that is under real threat, because “River City”, for example, is ending, with the result that the benefits of that long-running drama will be lost. Am I right in saying that you are not concerned about that, because you think that the offer that we have is the right one?

I have just two questions. One of them is on STV, but the first one relates to the discussion that there has been on whether Sky might be taking over ITV.

This might not be central to our questioning so far, but I am interested in Ofcom’s view on the absolutely atrocious “Press Preview” that is on Sky every night, in which you get a vaguely leftist or Labour-supporting journalist and an avowedly right-wing journalist to give their unbiased views on the unbiased print media to an unbiased interviewer. How that serves Scotland or anywhere else, I do not know. Has Ofcom ever looked at that or taken a view on it? Given Cristina’s previous experience at Sky—I do not know how long ago that was—I am interested to hear her view.