URGENT change is needed to address the BBC’s “breathtaking arrogance” in its relationship with Scotland’s screen industry, a leading director has said.
Peter Strachan, who sits on the board of trade body Directors UK, accused the BBC of “depriving” Scots of opportunities in an interview with The National.
It comes after Strachan made headlines with an analysis which claimed the public broadcaster is failing to comply with the Ofcom regulations for its hit TV show The Traitors by classing it as Scottish when an alleged 81% of its production team is based in England.
He also published an open letter calling for the "urgent" changes needed, without which he warned Scotland's screen industry will “continue to dwindle and die”.
The veteran TV director told The National that his research into the BBC’s commissioning was motivated by “the injustice” of having a large portion of Scotland’s quota met by productions and the people working on them outside the country.
A report published by Screen Scotland late last year found that only five of the BBC’s top 15 “Scottish” producers (by hours commissioned) were headquartered in Scotland.
Strachan (below) said: “They deprive us of the opportunity and then decry that the talent isn't here with the experience.
“It's not rocket science, but I use this expression with very small letters, but it is a kind of form of cultural imperialism.
“To say that there's no experience here, it's so arrogant. I mean, it's breathtakingly arrogant.”
Ofcom sets out-of-London criteria for production companies which are supposed to encourage firms to make more programmes, spend more money, and employ greater numbers of staff outside of the English capital.
The regulations require producers to meet two of three criteria to qualify as out-of-London. These are having a “substantive base” in the region, investing 70% of production spend and having at least 50% of the off-screen talent outside London.
Strachan said that just 4% of the “above the line roles” at Studio Lambert-produced The Traitor’s were filled by staff based in Scotland – and by removing a Glasgow-based executive producer it would be 0%.
“For Studio Lambert to claim that they are investing in the Scottish production community is a joke,” he said.
“The data does not support that, and Studio Lambert have produced zero evidence to date to say what they're doing to promote Scottish talent.”
Strachan, who emphasised that he is a champion of the BBC, said he believes the cultural landscape in the UK would be far poorer if it wasn't for the existence of the broadcaster.
However, he stressed that the BBC in particular, which receives TV licence payers' money, need to do better and that they need to take urgent action to address the inequality.
“We have to talk about these things openly and honestly and fix them because they're very, very real,” he said.
Strachan, who has been nominated for a BAFTA and an RTS for his directing, said that big, commissioned programmes like Shetland, Rebus, Nightsleeper, and Granite City are produced by companies outside Scotland.
His research found that a total of just 6% of the big production teams are based in Scotland.
“These big BBC network productions, they're not being staffed with as many Scottish, Scotland-based production off-screen talent as they ought to be and that's unacceptable in 2025,” he said.
Another example, according to Strachan, is the 175 hours per year of snooker which is filmed in Sheffield by IGM, which is based in London. However, this counts towards Scottish spend as the English firm rents a space at the BBC’s Pacific Quay base.
The veteran director added that other productions like Strike! The Village that Fought Back and the Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon documentary are both made by Fire Crest, a company that he stresses do good work, but were directed by staff based in London.
Despite both productions having decently sized Scottish crews, Strachan said it was “appalling” the top roles were held by people who are “shipped up” to tell important Scottish stories.
He added that it’s not a case of “sour grapes”, but the fact the industry in Scotland is consistently and historically overlooked in favour of their London counterparts.
Strachan said the conversation should now be around solutions and how the BBC can recognise the problem and create a pipeline at all levels for people to move up to the most senior roles while also forging new talent within the industry.
“We should be talking about not just new entrant or emerging director schemes; we should be talking about how the BBC are going to introduce career pipelines for directors and other above the line roles at all levels,” Strachan said.
“There's no excuse on series three of The Traitors, that there's not at least one director or a senior producer that's based in Scotland. It's just completely unacceptable.”
Strachan stressed that the people working on productions like The Traitors are undoubtedly talented, but are not “innately more talented than people in Scotland”.
He added: “They were not born more talented.
“They got these jobs because they received an opportunity to gain the experience, the requisite experience, and that opportunity is being denied Scotland's off-screen talent.”
Strachan said the BBC were just “lazy” by not introducing a new entrant scheme for The Traitors production like Starz TV did for Outlander.
The California-based production company worked with Screen Scotland and trained around 170 new entrants into the industry, according to Strachan.
“They could have done something like that on The Traitors, but it's just the arrogance of it, it's just the laziness of it. They didn't even bother and they just shipped the people in.”
The director is calling for the government to now get involved and look at the Ofcom regulations as they are “not fit for purpose”.
He said that his data has shown that Ofcom’s criteria need a redesign as a “matter of urgency” because the BBC and production companies like Studio Lambert have “clearly shown” that they have no interest in investing to a credible degree in Scotland's off-screen talent.
A Studio Lambert spokesperson said: “Making The Traitors in Scotland for both UK and US audiences is a real privilege. To be able to bring the level of investment and interest in Inverness, the Scottish Highlands, to a global audience of this scale is something we are very proud of. Studio Lambert is committed to investing in the production community in Scotland and will continue to do so for forthcoming series.
“Since the commission of the first series of Traitors we have invested in Scotland in the training and development of the specific production skills required for large scale reality shows of this nature and are committed to continuing to do so.”
BBC Scotland has been approached for comment.
