BBC Scotland issued more error corrections in the past year than all of the broadcasters’ other UK regional and national offices combined.
Analysis of the BBC’s official corrections and clarifications page shows that, of the 66 errors which have been corrected so far in 2023, six were for Scottish output.
In comparison, neither BBC Wales nor BBC Northern Ireland have issued a single correction.
Five regional or local English BBC offices – London, Midlands, Hereford & Worcester, Tyne & Wear, and East – have each issued a single correction over the past year.
A spokesperson for the corporation said BBC Scotland broadcast “considerably more” output than other national and regional UK offices.
The remaining 55 corrections all related to UK-wide output, though some of these errors may have also appeared on devolved broadcasts.
Radio 4 was the BBC channel which issued the most error corrections in 2023. Seventeen clarifications had to be issued for the station.
BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 each issued a single correction, while BBC Radio Scotland issued two.
On television, BBC One issued the most corrections. Eleven were directly linked to the channel, while two more were linked to its News at Ten broadcast.
BBC Two issued five corrections, while BBC One Scotland issued two. A further error was linked to Reporting Scotland, which is also shown on BBC One Scotland.
The BBC’s formatting of its corrections and clarifications page is not uniform. For example, sometimes each error’s title will be the name of the show on which the mistake appeared, sometimes the title will name the channel or station, and other times the title will be the topic being corrected.
Many errors also appeared in more than one place. For this analysis, the first mentioned appearance of the mistake is the category into which it was placed.
For example, an error corrected on August 1 was linked to “Newsnight/BBC News Online”. As such, this was counted as Newsnight, and then categorised as UK-wide.
Responding to the analysis, SNP MSP John Mason said: “My initial reaction would be that I cannot believe the BBC has issued so few corrections ... 66 in total!
“Given the number of complaints I hear about the BBC, it seems the company is only accepting that a tiny number of these need corrections.
“To suggest that five English regions only issued one each, and Wales and Northern Ireland none at all suggests that the bar for their issuing a correction is far too high.
“I would look to Ofcom to step in and insist on many more corrections.”
An SNP spokesperson added: “BBC Scotland has a responsibility to provide the people across Scotland with accurate and without-bias news.”
A BBC spokesperson said: “BBC Scotland has published six corrections across a twelve-month period.
“The BBC broadcasts considerably more hours of news and current affairs in Scotland than in each of the other nations and regions of the UK, and it is important, on these rare occasions when something hasn’t been right, that we acknowledge it.”
You can find the BBC's corrections and clarifications page here.
