Meeting of the Parliament 23 February 2016
Over the past year, two parliamentary committees have conducted inquiries into the BBC’s performance in Scotland and, with cross-party support, concluded that we get a raw deal from the existing BBC production arrangements.
The Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee said:
“The Committee supports the call from the Scottish Government for the BBC to increase support for independent TV production based in Scotland.”
The Education and Culture Committee said:
“We also want the BBC to do more to support BBC Scotland’s in-house production arm and the creative industries in Scotland.”
What is the current situation on licence fees, and how much is spent on sustaining our indigenous television sector? The BBC informed us that the licence fee raises £323 million, although the Culture, Media and Sport Committee at Westminster said that the amount collected is £335 million, excluding our share of the worldwide television sales that we help to fund. BBC commercial revenue amounts to £1.1 billion per annum; our population share would be £94 million. That would result in an overall Scottish budget of £429 million.
In Ireland, Raidió Teilifís Éireann has a budget of £242 million and provides five television channels and nine radio stations. What do we get? We get an opt-out BBC Scotland, 80 per cent of whose output is news, current affairs and sport, plus BBC Alba, which has had its funding cut by the UK Government, and BBC Radio Scotland, which defaults to BBC Radio 5 Live during the night.
How is our contribution to the BBC spent? The BBC informed us that it is spent on a combination of local output, television for the network and other BBC channels and services.