[thegeek]

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

An Là uses a gallery in Glasgow - they've been doing remote production since before it was fashionable.

[Brekkie]

Surely one issue with the move to 7pm is when Reporting Scotland runs late, either due to an extended Six or sport pushing it back, especially during Wimbledon (when it can be last minute) and the Euros (usually planned, but extra time can push it back).

[Paul O’Brien]

The Scottish Six has long been a hobby horse for the SNP and its activists but it does at least identify a legitimate problem. So much domestic policy is devolved that a lot of the domestic BBC news is not relevant to Scotland - but the equivalent news that IS relevant to Scotland isn’t important enough to merit covering for a U.K. wide audience. This isn’t great for Scottish democracy.

Creating an entire extra news programme on a peripheral station was never likely to sort that problem but the logistics of working opt outs into the main news programme are horrendous. The practical solution is probably just to treat Reporting Scotland as the second and equal half of a news hour (and for London to bear in mind more often that English stories often need disclaimers if they’re going to be broadcast across the U.K.).

[Brekkie]

To be fair the calls for a Scottish Six haven't been as loud in the last decade as they were in the previous decade.

I wonder if the Nine would have rated any better if it had been an opt out on the News Channel in Scotland?

[thegeek]

Creating an entire extra news programme on a peripheral station was never likely to sort that problem but the logistics of working opt outs into the main news programme are horrendous.

STV used to share live hits between the various sub-regional versions of Scotland Today - one studio (usually Glasgow) would take the lead and the other regions would ask the same pre-prepared questions to the same reporter at the same time. There used to be a good behind-the-scenes video showing how it was done.

It's not horrendous - just requires a bit of creative thinking and collaboration.

[Steve in Pudsey]

The regional programmes used to cope with this - Southampton would do a generic intro to a football highlights package and Oxford would play in their own version of the same duration

[Keith]

Surely one issue with the move to 7pm is when Reporting Scotland runs late, either due to an extended Six or sport pushing it back, especially during Wimbledon (when it can be last minute) and the Euros (usually planned, but extra time can push it back).

One advantage of *if* the BBC Scotland channel were to close in future is that BBC Two Scotland could be restored.

At risk of fantasy scheduling, this would then allow 7pm on BBC Two to be designed for nation to opt-out. I believe currently Wales already move the One Show to BBC Two on Mondays. With a nation opt-out on BBC Two restored, Scotland could then potentially also do this if they wanted to extend Reporting Scotland or even air 'The Seven' on BBC Two. There's also plenty of opt-out opportunities on BBC Two daytime whist it's simulcasting the News Channel.

I'd imagine that this arrangement might be politically pleasing, compared to the current arrangement. The BBC could even have their version of a FAST channel called "Best of Scotland" or similar, even if they later quietly dropped it after a few months/year.

[ViridianFan]

The Scottish Six has long been a hobby horse for the SNP and its activists but it does at least identify a legitimate problem. So much domestic policy is devolved that a lot of the domestic BBC news is not relevant to Scotland - but the equivalent news that IS relevant to Scotland isn’t important enough to merit covering for a U.K. wide audience. This isn’t great for Scottish democracy.

Creating an entire extra news programme on a peripheral station was never likely to sort that problem but the logistics of working opt outs into the main news programme are horrendous. The practical solution is probably just to treat Reporting Scotland as the second and equal half of a news hour (and for London to bear in mind more often that English stories often need disclaimers if they’re going to be broadcast across the U.K.).

I’m assuming, if they so wish, that it would be technically possible for the nations to opt out of the national news with their own news?

How it would work in practice I don know, but I’ve often wondered if the headline recap was moved back for 3/4 minutes and then instead of the nations doing their “coming up” bit that they instead start their program with only the English regions returning to the national news. That would give the nations more time and the more English centred stories could go in that 10mins

[Brekkie]

I think the problem is an "English only" story might need to be at the top of the running order. It would probably end up being a bit of a fudge - I think they'd either need to keep the status quo or opt out completely to control the running order, but then you're probably putting the key Scottish news in that first half hour and having to pad out to fill the second half hour.

Let's not forget us folk in Wales and Scotland do occassionally cross the border too - so often England only announcements have implications that affect us too, whether in term of services or when additional funding is made available the nations are supposed to get an equivalent pot too.

[GraemeT88]

Make the nine, the seven, but on bbc2 and I genuinely think you shave a good thing there.

Remember the set is used for “the Sunday show” as well - so I’d imagine it stays.