Chamber and committees

::It has a big test.

::I will make a prediction on the ITV-Sky merger, which is that they will probably get more grief from the Monopolies and Mergers Commission than they do from Ofcom. That is just me being cynical.

On the STV News idea in Aberdeen, STV decided to launch STV Radio nationally at the same time. It is a good thing that we have another commercial radio station, but it did it at the same time that it was cutting news jobs in Aberdeen. STV’s pitch was that customers would be able to advertise on breakfast radio in the morning, when people still listen to radio, right through to their flagship show, STV News, at night.

Surely there is madness in the idea that major companies—as you know, as someone who lived and worked in the north-east of Scotland—would think of advertising with the local broadcaster. There would be no point, because their audience is not actually getting anything. STV made a change with Ofcom on the times, and I think that there will be an extra couple of minutes. If Aberdeen Football Club is playing a game in Aberdeen, there is a good chance that football will take that time up, or the local weather will.

STV has said that its decision on the news was a business one, then all of a sudden, it changed things again, after investing millions in a studio up there. Is that not just madness? I just cannot see the logic behind much of it.

I am not asking you to run STV. I am just asking you, as the cabinet secretary for culture, whether there is a better way for one of our major public broadcasters to approach this than what is happening at the moment.

::Finally, I note that you mentioned radio at one point. The funny thing about radio is that it is an early adopter of different ways of broadcasting—indeed, it now has televisual elements to it, too—and radio in Scotland, even with the difficulties, has been the great survivor. It is managing to be one of the few places where Scotland’s voices are still heard. Global pulled out of Scotland in Heart and Capital radio; its audiences tanked; and it came back a couple of years later and has now been broadcasting in Scotland for a while. Clyde 1, which is owned by Bauer, is a phenomenon, although the football traffic might have helped with that one, right enough. I know that Radio Scotland is still struggling, which is why it has a new broom going through it as we speak, but a lot of its audience comes from football traffic, too.

Radio might be doing well, cabinet secretary, but the question is: how do we protect what we have? Radio Scotland is moving in a certain direction; people have found that difficult, because some favourites are no longer there, and they are questioning whether that is the way forward and whether it is going down a more commercial route. At the same time, there are some very successful Scottish commercial stations, which have advertising and which are still moving forward—they have adopted the new digital realm. In fact, Clyde 1 has even moved back to Glasgow from Clydebank after about 30 years. How do we protect radio broadcasting in Scotland?

::Good morning, cabinet secretary. The reason why I asked for us to have this broadcasting inquiry—and I think that Stephen Kerr had similar reasons—was that I thought that Scotland’s voice was getting lost in broadcasting. I am not talking about the received-pronunciation BBC types that we normally get; I am talking about Scotland’s voice in broadcasting.

I used to blame the broadcasters but, after seeing Ofcom come to the committee on a number of occasions, I have to say that it is the problem because it does not use the powers that it has. To be fair to Ofcom, the Media Act 2024 took a lot of powers off it. However, on the whole, we heard the regulator talking about how it had to help the broadcasters and make sure that they were okay. It said that STV might give back its channel 3 licence—let us not kid ourselves: a channel 3 licence in Scotland is a licence to print money. STV might not be as profitable as it used to be, but it is still a profitable company.

Is Ofcom not the problem? To put it more bluntly, is Ofcom as good as a chocolate fireguard?

::And it does it on both television and radio.

09:45

::I am sorry to interrupt, cabinet secretary, but the problem is that, when Ofcom comes here, its mindset seems to be that of the broadcaster and the producer of the content, not the audience. That seems to be the wrong way round, because it has to protect the audience as well.

::I am just asking for your opinion.

::As the media landscape changes, Ofcom has a massive test coming up with the Sky-ITV merger. The idea of losing the equivalent of Grampian news in Scotland pales into insignificance when you consider the number of licences when the ITV network and Sky merge. Ofcom is going to have to deal with that. Do you think that it is up to the task of dealing with that and, at the same time—to bring it back to Scotland—protecting our broadcasting? It does not have a good track record.

::Thank you.

I take it totally to heart that Paul O’Kane is leaving while I am asking my questions. [Laughter.] It is offensive.

I was not going to ask a question this morning, but I want to follow up on something. It would be dead easy for those of us who come from certain areas to have a go at independent schools because there are none in our areas and we do not think that they affect us. However, I listened to the answers to Ross Greer’s questions, and particularly to John O’Neill’s comments about bursaries. In areas such as mine—Paisley—because of the demographics, some children and their families will be getting a 100 per cent bursary, or at least a bursary of some kind. I do not know whether you answered Ross Greer’s question—I might have faded out at that point—but what is the percentage?