[interestednovice]

Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland all have a single “nations” local news programme (instead of regional news) and a “nations” radio station (instead of local radio as in England). Arguably this is partly due to population size.

They get other services which English regions don’t though, such as BBC One and BBC Two opts and some extra radio stations - BBC Radio Cymru and Cymru 2, for example.

It’s just how things have evolved over time, I think, and not part of a deliberate strategy. It’s not like somebody sat down in 1950 and said “let’s set things up like this”.

[Brekkie]

I think Radio Scotland has some opt outs for Orkney and Shetland and Radio Wales has certainly had splits for sport for North Wales, but not sure if we ever had any separate programming.

[Steve in Pudsey]

Radio Clwyd and Radio Gwent both existed for a while. Clwyd had its own mid morning programme.

[ViridianFan]

Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland all have a single “nations” local news programme (instead of regional news) and a “nations” radio station (instead of local radio as in England). Arguably this is partly due to population size.

They get other services which English regions don’t though, such as BBC One and BBC Two opts and some extra radio stations - BBC Radio Cymru and Cymru 2, for example.

It’s just how things have evolved over time, I think, and not part of a deliberate strategy. It’s not like somebody sat down in 1950 and said “let’s set things up like this”.

When you look at the population of Scotland, there are only two english regions (not bbc regions) with smaller populations, that being the East Midlands and the north east. Scotland, wales and North Ireland are effectively the size of a regional news. When you think back to the 1999 rebrand, they were branded in the same style as the English regions with only the music being different. After they’ve always tried to align more with the national look than the regional.

With the cuts being made it’s surely going to become increasingly difficult to justify a separate channel when there are larger population areas which aren’t getting the same bespoke channel. You argue that the differences between many of the English regions is just as great as it is between Scotland and England and have just as strong sense of regional identity.

As others have said, it would make sense to change it back and make use of the opt out

[Milkshake]

When you look at the population of Scotland, there are only two english regions (not bbc regions) with smaller populations, that being the East Midlands and the north east. Scotland, wales and North Ireland are effectively the size of a regional news. When you think back to the 1999 rebrand, they were branded in the same style as the English regions with only the music being different. After they’ve always tried to align more with the national look than the regional.

Yet, itv is able to provide 3 news programmes and 5 news opt out, and people wonder why BBC is not pulling its weight.

STV did a pilot once for a Scottish Six they integrated everything into the mix, including speaking with ITN, Shame that never happened.

[tellyblues]

It's been ages since any viewing figures for BBC Scotland have been revealed but the BBC will only do it themselves if they look good.

I would have thought The Nine would be the last thing to go on the channel seeing as though there is a strict requirement to have news but it appears there is a workaround by having more episodes of Debate Night and various other things to please Ofcom.

The channel has been a benefit to the production sector in Scotland with some shows that wouldn't have been made otherwise but once enough of that content had been produced, the remit allowed the BBC to drastically reduce the amount of commissioning over time and the misleading "50% old 50% new" soundbite used to sell the channel at first could still apply and the BBC couldn't be accused of doing anything wrong. Now there are production companies sitting doing nothing on the basis of a technicality.

Since there is little in the way of commissioning now and everything which has been made is on iPlayer, most of the new stuff could be put on BBC1/2 and the channel run to a bare minimum to meet quotas, although what about the shows that are displaced on BBC1/2? Surely these audiences are important too?

[interestednovice]

The only high profile non-news/current affairs programme of moderate success that was ever on BBC Scotland, as far as I can remember, was River City.

Even then, wasn’t it repeated on BBC One Scotland because people didn’t realise the BBC Scotland channel actually existed?

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I would have thought The Nine would be the last thing to go on the channel seeing as though there is a strict requirement to have news

Since there is little in the way of commissioning now and everything which has been made is on iPlayer, most of the new stuff could be put on BBC1/2 and the channel run to a bare minimum to meet quotas, although what about the shows that are displaced on BBC1/2? Surely these audiences are important too?

Yes, presumably the news quotas are why they are persevering with The Seven. The move to earlier gets it out the way, enables more sharing of resources with Reporting Scotland and will cut costs.

The BBC One and BBC Two programmes which get displaced by opt-outs are usually repeats or, if needed, are aired later in the day so viewers don’t miss them (pushing back the point that the channel closes and “Joins BBC News”). Either way, since the programmes have aired somewhere in the U.K., they will be available through iPlayer immediately after the network broadcast.

[lookoutwales]

I think Radio Scotland has some opt outs for Orkney and Shetland and Radio Wales has certainly had splits for sport for North Wales, but not sure if we ever had any separate programming.

Historically, there were some local opt-outs for mainland Scotland too (i.e. Radio Highland, Radio Aberdeen, Radio Tweed) which around the early 90s were parred back to just local news bulletins - there were six regions, IIRC - at breakfast, lunch and Drivetime.

I'm not whether those regions still do news opts - but Radio Orkney and Radio Shetland do at least three opts a day (a half-hour news programme, an hour-long evening show and a shared lunchtime bulletin)

By the same token, Radio Wales ran similar opt-out bulletins for the North East area previously served by Radio Clwyd until 2002 - think it was only around that time that the opt to carry Wrexham's games was established.

STV did a pilot once for a Scottish Six they integrated everything into the mix, including speaking with ITN, Shame that never happened.

The ill-fated Independently Funded News Consortia (IFNC) pilot that never was.

The trouble is for its good intentions - bumping up the number of local opts to six etc (even though another consortium was lined up to take over the then-Tyne Tees and Border region) - people were quick to point out it was a handy way to ditch the existing STV North service.

AFAIK, the most we saw of the 'pilot' was actually an elongated promo fronted by John MacKay.

www.heraldscotland.com 

STV plans to resurrect idea of Scottish Six news bulletin | The Herald
Last night Rob Woodward, STV’s chief executive, said it plans to broadcast a one…
  Source: www.heraldscotland.com

In the event, STV lost the contract - likewise ITV Wales were due to lose out to a UTV-led group - but the change in government that year killed the pilot dead with the incoming Tories favouring local TV instead (and as we know, STV had its hands burnt again when they tried the 'Scottish Seven')*

* cues Halla Mohieddeen walking off and throwing her script away

www.theguardian.com 

Johnston Press, Newsquest and Trinity Mirror win ITV regional news bids | Region…
Consortiums involving newspaper groups are preferred bidders as ITN and STV miss…
  Source: www.theguardian.com

[Stooky Bill]

Historically, there were some local opt-outs for mainland Scotland too (i.e. Radio Highland, Radio Aberdeen, Radio Tweed) which around the early 90s were parred back to just local news bulletins - there were six regions, IIRC - at breakfast, lunch and Drivetime.

I'm not whether those regions still do news opts - but Radio Orkney and Radio Shetland do at least three opts a day (a half-hour news programme, an hour-long evening show and a shared lunchtime bulletin)

Yes they still do news bulletin opt outs during breakfast and drivetime. Only Orkney and Shetland appear as seperate streams on Sounds I think the others are clipped and put on the BBC website somewhere

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Truly the programme was always doomed to fail at 9pm. The one hour of the day when TV across the schedules is at their strongest means there's no way you can expect even the most loyal audience to tune it at 9 every night like they do at 6 and 10. Arguably it's hurt BBC Scotland as a channel itself. The slot they could have used to their advantage to showcase their variety of genres to an audience flicking through the EPG was constantly lumbered with news.

I'll never understand why they persisted with 9pm and didn't try another slot much sooner.

I imagine it's partly because it's easier to do it at 9. 7pm is a quick turnaround from Reporting Scotland, 8pm clashes with An La (comes from Inverness not Glasgow but still not ideal) and 10pm clashes with the network news

I wonder if this will be the end of its separate studio and they'll do an ITV London on the Reporting Scotland set? That separate set must be a substantial cost when they've got an unused standing set in the same building.

You've seen the set.... There's not much set! The set itself costs nothing once it's bought and installed, same with the studio equipment until it needs renewing.

Nice location that, a shame that they didn't move Reporting Scotland to it permanently. I imagine they'll keep it for now due to the quick turnaround at 7pm and Sundays and there's an election coming up

[Globaltraffic24]

As above, my guess set-wise is that we’ll see the existing atrium set staying until post-election, with the 7pm news programme likely using the existing weekend 7 titles. After the election, expect it to be stripped back further with the news effectively being a rerun of Rep Scot, from the Rep Scot studio (easy to achieve if the opening 5 mins are effectively pre recorded ) That, of course, is all assuming that the channel even survives until the end of the year.

On the posts about the STV Scottish Six - I was one of the very lucky few to actually see the pilot. As was said earlier, all the public saw was a short clip featuring John. The show was honestly very good. Unlike the STV2 global news show, which had more of a slow, in depth channel 4 feel, this felt like it justified the need for a Scottish Six style programme. It was packed with stories and rapidly took us from relevant hyper local news to international news that mattered. It also leant heavily on live link ups to reporters. STV really should have won the contract as the newspaper consortium would have been a mess.