BBC Scotland has been pushed on why it does not show more content from the Scottish Parliament – given that the BBC Scotland channel shows nothing at all for most of the day.
SNP, Labour, and Tory MSPs all raised concerns about a lack of content on the channel with BBC Scotland director Hayley Valentine as she gave evidence to Holyrood’s Culture Committee on Thursday.
As the three questioned why there are not more broadcasts of the goings-on from the Scottish Parliament, SNP MSP George Adam said: “What we're trying to say is, maybe the public can get access to what's happening in Westminster, but they can't necessarily get it here and we think that's an issue.”
However, Valentine appeared to rebuff the idea – suggesting it would be too costly and not provide value for money given that the Scottish Parliament already provides live broadcasts online.
Concerns were initially raised by Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr.
“What I think I'm concerned about is the depth of the coverage that we get for the proceedings of the Scottish Parliament,” he said.
“Why can't BBC Scotland – which during the day has got no programming – why can't you relay the proceedings of the Scottish Parliament instead? Why can't you do that?”
Valentine responded: “So there's a couple of reasons. The first one is that every choice we make costs money. This is not free. We need editorial control over things. This would not be a free thing to do.
“Every time you make a choice, there's no new money and the budgets are tight, and we would have to move money away from somewhere else in order to do that.”
She went on: “The second thing is that when we launched the channel, with negotiations with Ofcom about what that looked like, in order to make any change to that in regulatory terms, we would have to go back to Ofcom … it's not a straightforward process.”
Valentine said there shouldn’t be any “duplication” and “there is Scottish Parliament TV”.
Kerr questioned why it was then OK for the House of Commons to have both a dedicated BBC channel and a parliament live online broadcast.
“It’s a different argument for the House of Commons that was made in a different area,” Valentine said.
Kerr instead said there could be a "Today in Parliament" for Scotland, which he said would not be expensive to make. Asked why it did not exist, Valentine said: “Those are editorial choices, but we do a huge range of coverage of the Scottish Parliament, the issues that come out of it.”
“Part of the reason that Stephen and I have been known to have the odd barney, the odd bit of drama in the chamber, it's the only way we're going to get any access as backbenchers to any BBC news in any shape or form.
“So rather than the two of us have a sensible debate about something, we create a drama probably better than many of the dramas you might actually broadcast.”
He added: “So what I’m asking is, do you not agree with Stephen’s idea that surely there must be something you should look at where we are making sure that the people of Scotland get the opportunity to see what is happening in the parliament – because there's a lot more than just some of us that can decide that we'll just pick a fight with one another and cause some good television time.”
Valentine said BBC Scotland would take the note, but added: “Nothing is free for us to do. We do have Scottish Parliament TV.
“I don't think that in a position where we are looking at budgets every day and making difficult decisions, that replicating something that already exists is necessarily the right way forward for us.”
Labour MSP Neil Bibby later said that he agreed with his colleagues “George Adam and Stephen Kerr on what they said about coverage of the Scottish Parliament”.
“I hear what has been said about the BBC Scotland channel in terms of having no content,” he went on.
“I appreciate you have to take decisions when there is potentially better content – and I'll leave others to decide whether that's the case – but given there is nothing on the BBC Scotland channel during the day, it does seem to me that something should be looked at.”
