Channel 4 'failed' Scotland - Culture Commission

Published on Wednesday 9 December 2009 15:41

CHANNEL 4 chief Stuart Cosgrove had to answer claims today that he has "not delivered" for the TV industry in Scotland.

But he told Holyrood's Culture Committee that Channel 4 has brought a string of international awards to Scotland since he joined 17 years ago.

Mr Cosgrove added: "I wouldn't swap that for another episode of Take the High Road."

The committee heard that the broadcaster is to spend 6.1 million in Scotland this year, 2.1% of it's network budget. This is down from 2.6% in 2006 but up from 1.4% last year.

Tory MSP Ted Brocklebank, himself a former programme maker, said: "If I were a disgruntled indie I might say that Stuart Cosgrove has been great to Channel 4, he's kept the natives quiet.

"He's done a great job in talking up Scotland but actually, some say, not really delivering very much for Scotland."

Mr Brocklebank said that there should be a production base in Scotland after the emergence of shows such as Take the High Road and Machar in the early days of STV.

"There was a build-up of dramatic talent in Scotland. We've seen it more recently in River City," he said.

"Critics, not only of you but of the BBC and STV, would say that that talent wasn't nurtured by the commissioning editors."

Mr Brocklebank said this is why a city such as Glasgow is in such a weak position compared with cities such as Manchester and Bristol.

"The commissioning editors, in a sense, failed Scotland," he said.

But Mr Cosgrove, Channel 4's director of the nations and regions, said this was a "very, very partial" reading of history.

He said he is "massively proud" that Channel 4's Film Four offshoot has won international awards, including Oscars, Baftas and Emmys, for Scotland.

He told Mr Brocklebank: "You might not want to hear that but the programmes you said did not win those awards, Machar and Take the High Road.

"However great it might have felt in that era it was in a bubble. On the global stage that Film Four plays, Scotland does really well and we win those awards.

"I would not want to trade that for another episode of Take the High Road. I would not want to do that Ted. It would be wrong for my culture and for my country.

"You need to recognise that that's a fundamental achievement that Channel 4 has delivered in Scotland during the period of my watch in this country."

Nationalist backbencher Aileen Campbell pointed to the Scottish Broadcasting Commission report which expressed "disappointment" about Channel 4's spending.

If the broadcaster met the BBC target of 9% it could provide 25 million to the industry in Scotland, the report claimed.

But Mr Cosgrove said the recession had cost the broadcaster "hundreds of millions" of pounds.

He told the committee that Scotland's weakness in TV production is because of a lack of "returning dramas".

He compared this with the success of long-running Manchester-based programmes Shameless and Hollyoaks.

Channel 4 commissions shows from independent programme-makers and does not have any in-house production itself, like the BBC has, and it has no control over the rights of the shows it broadcasts.

It is a commercial operation which makes money from advertising and does not receive any money from the licence fee.