Meeting of the Parliament 23 February 2016
I am pleased and relieved that this is a relatively consensual debate about the future of the BBC. I am relieved because—I make no bones about this—I take a personal as well as a public interest in the corporation’s future. Before I was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, I worked for the BBC for 13 years as a TV producer in news and current affairs. Most of that time was spent in London, although for the last two years I was in charge of the Scottish output on national news programmes.
I have been struck by how similar the content of much of this debate, the Government’s policy paper and the committee’s report is to that of the discussions that we had about the BBC over two decades ago. Over that period, the technology, our viewing habits, the number of channels and other available media have changed out of all recognition.
I will give just one example. I noticed this year that the television figures for Christmas day revealed that peak viewing did not exceed 7 million for any one programme. Over the following fortnight into January, that was boosted by almost 4 million by those who watched on various forms of catch-up television, but that total still does not come close to the audience figures that were pulled in 20 or 30 years ago. The audience is smaller, and that also reveals a little about the way in which many people watch TV. They do so on their own devices and at times that are convenient to them.
I said that because it makes discussions around the idea or importance of a Scottish 6 o’clock news, for example, sound a little arcane. Delivering impartial, trusted and high-quality news will remain one of the most important services that we expect of the BBC, but the issue that we need to wrestle with as part of charter renewal is more about how to reach an increasingly diverse audience, rather than how Scottish a fixed programme at 6 o’clock may be. If families are not sitting down together to watch the same programmes that they used to watch and there is a decline in so-called linear viewing habits, that is the challenge that we need the BBC to rise to.
Politicians, such as we are, are particularly concerned with the news agenda, but our obsession is not necessarily shared by most of the public, nor does it reflect the changing media landscape. More and more people are getting their news online and the BBC iPlayer has been biggest success of recent years. If we are interested in preserving and holding on to the independence, trust, reliability, creativity, balance and watchability of the phenomenally important institution that is the BBC, we need to reflect and cater for that wider interest, not just our own potentially narrower focus. We need to think a bit more about the habits of the viewers and listeners and less about our own political agendas. I am therefore relieved that, today, we are putting the emphasis on where we can agree rather than on where we disagree, although I am conscious and wary of those other agendas.
It would help if we could acknowledge that the BBC is and always has been surrounded by people and interest groups who do not necessarily have its best interests at heart. The free marketeers would like to dismantle it and sell off Radio 1 or Radio 2, which they say could equally well be provided by the commercial sector. The Conservative Government has cut £700 million from the BBC’s budget without even the face-saving pretence of a consultation. Right wingers like to portray an objective public service broadcaster as a nest of leftie sympathisers, and they have their appetites whetted by anti-BBC stories in the Daily Mail and elsewhere. The Murdoch press rants without a trace of irony about the BBC’s dominant media position.
What is the situation in Scotland? On the one hand, there is a well of support and good will for this altruistic organisation. Perhaps it goes back as far as Lord Reith, the first director general of the BBC, who left his Presbyterian mark on the corporation. To this day, the BBC holds true to his values to inform, educate and entertain, and long may that continue.
On the other hand, many of us were pretty appalled by the behaviour of some in the SNP during the referendum campaign. I echo the sentiments that Liam McArthur expressed. There is, unfortunately, a vein of illiberal, book-burning intolerance among a minority of SNP members or supporters, and Alex Salmond’s bizarre dispute with the BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson, and the protests outside BBC Scotland were the most high-profile and worrying examples of that. Today’s support for the BBC from the Scottish Government is welcome, although I am sure that the minister and members across the Parliament will understand if some of us remain suspicious about the SNP’s long-term goals.
Just to be clear, I do not wish any Government or any political party to bully, cajole or otherwise dominate the editorial or broadcasting freedom of the BBC.
What can we agree on? I think that we all want more high-quality and larger-budget programmes to be made here in Scotland. The creative industries are essential to our country’s future, and we do not have to look far to see the talent and ability that is pouring forth from our schools, displayed in our art colleges and heard on our music scene. I would like anyone with that talent to be able to fulfil their potential here in Scotland and not to feel obliged to move elsewhere.
Just to be clear, I believe that more programmes should be commissioned and made here in Scotland, but they do not have to be about Scotland. They should be network programmes that are aimed at a UK and potentially an international audience, but commissioned and produced here in Scotland. I say yes to greater decentralisation—I am pleased that the process is already in place in the BBC—but that does not mean breaking up the BBC into a federal structure, and it certainly does not mean divvying up the licence fee along similar lines.
I see that the Presiding Officer is asking me to wind up. I am certainly not alone in my affection and regard for the BBC, but more important is the trust that most of us in Scotland place in the organisation and the public service that it provides.
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