[DTV]

That's fair justification for having a bigger newsgathering operation and a few extra news/politics opt outs. But a whole extra channel?

I think it's important to remember that BBC Scotland's existence is really entirely political. In 2014, the SNP's proposal for an independent Scotland included replacing the BBC with a new broadcaster. Although the plans weren't particularly thought through, they worried the BBC as losing Scotland would represent losing nearly a tenth of licence income (which would necessitate more cuts to the remaining BBC). BBC Scotland is probably the most prominent way that the BBC has been trying to say 'we can serve Scotland well, you don't need to replace us'. Whether it will work is another matter, but the BBC's view is basically that the little additional spend now would be worth not losing Scottish licence money. The politics of it mean that it's now basically impossible for the BBC to axe BBC Scotland until the independence debate is either settled or dissipates.

It's also worth remembering that the BBC Scotland channel has only marginally pushed up the entire BBC Scotland TV content budget. The channel absorbed the BBC Two Scotland budget and took a significant chunk of BBC One Scotland's. Comparing the most recent accounts with the ones from five years ago, the actual real terms increase in BBC Scotland's total TV content budget is only around £5m (or around 10% of the BBC News channel's content budget). The BBC Scotland channel is really not the money pit that some seem to imagine.