CENTRAL SCOTLAND: SCOTTISH TELEVISION
Summary
In the approach to the first elections for the Scottish Parliament, with a new focus on
national and regional identity in Scotland, it is inevitable that broadcasting in Scotland,
like every aspect of culture and communication, is the subject of intense debate.
Scottish Television has therefore heard criticism of its output in 1998. Nevertheless,
the company has made strenuous and largely successful efforts to maintain the general
quality of its regional service and a strong regional identity through its programmes,
which included high quality factual and social action material. Special efforts were
made to reflect Scotland’s interest in the World Cup through a range of programmes.
Improvements in arts output broadened its appeal. Gaelic programmes also included
high quality material. A range of programmes was supplied to the network, more than
in 1997. The service complied with the licence conditions.
Regional Service
3.
In the first full year since its merger with Grampian Television, Scottish
Television maintained its separate regional identity through its own locally produced
output. Despite radical restructuring within the company, the ITC’s monitoring has
not produced any evidence that the regional service has suffered and Scottish has
restated the importance of catering for local tastes and interests.
Programmes
provided high levels of regional interest across different genres and the Viewer
Consultative Council (VCC) for Scotland was broadly complimentary about regional
output during 1998. One welcome effect of the merger was to give those in Central
Scotland the opportunity to view Grampian’s regional programmes instead of foreign
acquired material.
Scottish Television comfortably exceeded its overall licence requirement for first-run
regional programmes, broadcasting slightly more than in 1997. Scottish also met its
licence requirements in individual programme strands, addressing last year’s minor
shortfall in feature material.
Over the past few years the ITC has recognised the difficulties faced by Scottish in
finding attractive slots for all its regional output. To the company’s credit, there were
few changes in the amount of regional material scheduled within or close to peak-time
in 1998 despite the considerable pressure on slots caused by the World Cup.
The ITC acknowledges that current affairs programming in 1998 was in a transitional
phase after covering the momentous political events in 1997. Programming was
largely restricted to established programmes such as Platform which achieved a
broadcasting coup by transmitting the first extended interview given by the Prime
Minister in Scotland since the 1997 General Election. As pledged in last year’s review,
Scottish Parliamentary Question Time was restored to the schedule in March, offering
coverage and analysis of proceedings in Westminster.
The ITC looks to Scottish to expand on its traditional factual programming to provide
appropriate coverage of the Holyrood parliament in 1999. This should be possible by
building on the undoubted success of documentary programmes such as Our Friends
in the South, which reflected the devolution debate in 1998 from south of the border.
In addition, one of the most outstanding programmes of the year was the single
documentary Paying For the Piper, about the Piper Alpha disaster.
The geographical spread of coverage across the region in Scotland Today was
impressive, as was the programme’s generally high standard of reporting. However,
the move to a digital news centre towards the end of the year resulted in technical
problems in some bulletins. Although there was a slight drop in audience, the
programme increased its lead over its BBC competitor.
Other programmes that met regional interests effectively included the investigative
historical series Secret Scotland; and The Ken Fine Show, which celebrated the
diversity of the Scots language. In addition, the investigative series Reporters made a
welcome return, exploring issues of importance for Central Scotland.
Programming on contemporary art was re-vamped in 1998 with considerable success.
Artery brought a diverse range of subjects to the screen including pop music,
sculpture and architecture in an informative and refreshing manner. Programmes
covering the Edinburgh Festival and International Film Festival tackled some
challenging, adult themes in an accessible way. These programmes represented a
considerable achievement for a regional licensee. By offering a platform for new and
established musicians, Boxed Set was designed to appeal to younger viewers.
Another new programme was Seven Days with a magazine content replicating a
Sunday supplement. The ITC acknowledged its fresh approach to covering different
programming strands but the quality was inconsistent. The VCC felt some editions
failed to deal with topics in sufficient depth.
Scottish Action, in its first year as a co-production with Grampian, continued to be an
excellent example of social action programming, well resourced for providing back-up
advice for viewers. The multicultural series Citizen Khan, praised in last year’s review,
was dropped but similar issues were tackled in Seven Days and Scottish Action. New
and welcome social action programming included The Blind School.
A significant issue facing Scottish was how best to satisfy viewer interest in the 1998
World Cup. Although not part of ITV Network’s coverage plans, Scottish decided to
transmit live from Paris the opening match between Brazil and Scotland. A
commendable range of other programmes, including a drama, The Game, and single
documentaries, was shown to complement event coverage.
An issue arose over how Scottish would meet its licence requirement for sport in the
event of failure to secure rights for showing top level domestic football. With the
season already under way, a deal was struck and coverage was provided on Scotsport
and Extra Time. Scottish also obtained the rights to show lower division football.
Although Scottish met the overall 25 per cent requirement for independent
productions, the proportion of regional programmes commissioned from independent
companies was only 16 per cent. This figure was low compared to most regional ITV
companies and the range of regional independent productions was somewhat limited.
The ITC has urged Scottish to address this.
Gaelic Programmes
Scottish Television is required to transmit not less than one hour per week of Gaelic
programmes including not less than 30 minutes produced or commissioned by the
company, with the remainder being acquired from Grampian. There is an additional
requirement of not less than 30 minutes per week of Gaelic repeats. Taking into
account all these requirements, there was an over-delivery of 3 minutes a week.
However, the amount transmitted in peak-time was 27 minutes a week averaged over
the year, not the 30 minutes that has become accepted as a suitable amount. The
circumstances behind this, including live coverage of World Cup matches, were
exceptional to 1998 and satisfactory arrangements have been made for 1999.
Gaelic programmes included an aerial exploration of Scotland’s landscape Alba An
Tir, the children’s animation series Rupert and the entertainment programme Cuin is
Caite. Scottish also produced the annual Sabhal Mor Ostaig lectures delivered by
Calum MacDonald MP and Eamon O’ Cuiv TD.
In addition to this output, the company is required to broadcast a substantial amount of
programming funded by the Gaelic Broadcasting Committee (Comataidh Craolaidh
Gaidhlig)(CCG). In 1998 CCG programmes amounted to 1 hour 33 minutes a week,
including 20 minutes of repeats. These programmes included the drama series
Machair, produced by Scottish, and the innovative entertainment programme Aig Ire
which the company commissioned from an independent.
Other high quality
programmes produced from within the independent sector included Eilean Eile, which
was both visually interesting and educational.
The CCG consulted the ITC over Scottish Television’s attempt to move the 30 minutes
peak-time slot for CCG funded programming from a Tuesday to a Thursday evening,
where it would have been in opposition to programming funded by the Committee on
BBC2 Scotland. The ITC’s powers are limited in this area but the Commission was
involved in detailed discussions that resulted in Scottish allocating a new early
evening slot on Sundays.
Supply to the Network
20.
Scottish supplied 113 hours of new programmes to the network – an increase of
19 hours on last year, reversing a downward trend over the past four years. The
commissions were in Scottish’s traditional areas of drama, game shows, religion and
children’s programming. A welcome addition to the children’s slate was a drama,
Minty, aimed at a teenage audience, an area in which Scottish had not won a
commission for some time.
Despite many submissions in the entertainment and
documentary strands, Scottish was not successful in receiving any commissions in
these areas in 1998, apart from a single and commendable documentary on Lockerbie.
Compliance
The ITC intervened over breaches of its Programme Code on two occasions in 1998.
The first involved a network drama, The Stalker’s Apprentice, where a murder and its
aftermath were felt to be unnecessarily gruesome in a programme scheduled
immediately after the 9.00pm watershed.
Scottish was also advised that a pre-
transmission warning about the content of the drama would have been appropriate.
The other intervention concerned strong language in a regional programme, a short
film in the Prime Cuts series, and Scottish acknowledged that a scheduling mistake
had been made.
Regional Facilities
A digital news centre was developed to produce all news and sports programming.
The Edinburgh newsroom was also upgraded in preparation for coverage of the
Scottish Parliament.