[scottishtv]

Interesting that they chose to use the Debate Night brand rather than a ‘BBC News Scotland special’ or similar. A good opportunity to cross-promote the programme, normally shown on the BBC Scotland channel, but didn’t feel like as much of an ‘event’ as STV’s (who didn’t just brand theirs Scotland Tonight).

Yes, it did feel like the least expense was gone to by the BBC on these debates.  A bigger audience and fancy venue for Debate Night was welcome though.

I think in terms of effort, branding and extent of coverage, I think it was actually Sky that seems to have pulled out all the stops. The STV debate was a good effort but the studio itself was tiny.  They did get the 'first mover' advantage though - they were first to show the candidates arguing quite pointedly with each other, which has set the tone for a quite a bit of the media coverage.