Responses to Scottish Broadcasting Commission (November 2008) and Calman Commission on Scottish devolution (February 2009)

We advised the Trust on issues arising from the final report of the Scottish Broadcasting Commission. The Council considered that increasing the range of public service content available for audiences in Scotland through the Commission’s proposed new digital channel would be likely to benefit Â鶹Éç audiences. However we were concerned that if funding for the channel were to come, even indirectly, from the licence fee, this could damage the Â鶹Éç and would not be in the interests of licence fee payers in Scotland.

We welcomed the Commission’s focus on issues already raised by the Council, including aspects of Â鶹Éç news for audiences in Scotland, network television supply, and free-to-air carriage of national football. Members emphasised that Â鶹Éç Scotland delivers strongly across the Â鶹Éç’s public purposes. But we noted evident audience demand for more Â鶹Éç content specifically for Scotland in addition to, and not instead of, Â鶹Éç network output. The provision of separate service licences for Â鶹Éç Scotland services, called for in the Council’s response to the Service Licences consultation in April 2007, would facilitate proper debate of this issue.

The Â鶹Éç Trust’s submission to the Calman Commission on Scottish devolution was informed by the work of the Council. The submission said that the work of the Trust supported the evidence given to the Commission that there is audience demand in Scotland for more content on Scottish topics, or which is presented from a Scottish perspective. The Trust stated that, in setting the overall strategy for the Â鶹Éç, it took careful account of these views as part of its assessment of the needs of licence payers across the UK as a whole. It noted that its work plan included priorities on cultural representation of the UK nations, and the provision of national, regional and local news, and that the Audience Council monitored implementation of the actions agreed with the Executive.