Lesley Riddoch: Question time for the BBC in Scotland

THE Beeb has much to answer for over its Scottish news and current affairs programming, writes Lesley Riddoch

The BBC was in the dock last week. Director-general Mark Thompson gave evidence to the Holyrood culture committee with BBC Scotland boss Ken MacQuarrie. Committee members included SNP firebrand Joan McAlpine and veteran committee chair Stewart Maxwell – so sparks were expected to fly.

Certainly, there were tetchy moments over job cuts, the BBC’s surprising lack of post-independence “scenario planning” and the need for better UK reporting of Scottish politics. But BBC executives came prepared for a more systematic skelping. Why didn’t it happen? Is all in Aunty’s Scottish garden rosy?

Not in the view of Nationalists who staged a protest against BBC “bias” outside the “unionist pravdaesque mouthpiece” HQ in Glasgow and complained that independence debate audience members were allowed to make near-libellous allegations about Alex Salmond.

But the furore has obscured the fact that a little bit of TV history had been made. Two supporters of independence were pitted against two unionists in a major BBC Scotland debate. Hitherto, there’s been a speaker from each main party – thus three unionists against one Nationalist – or two unionists, a Nationalist and a devo-max “wild card”.

The creation of the “Yes” campaign creates a new dynamic for debate that gives the independence lobby two bites of the cherry – last week Nicola Sturgeon and Patrick Harvie – and the “second question” camp nothing at all. That huge change in visibility has been decided by one or two BBC producers – and there’s the rub.

The Green Party leader – deemed too insignificant for inclusion in previous panels – was the star of last Sunday’s debate. And yet most viewing and voting Scots would still never have heard of him if BBC producers had simply taken a different “format” decision.

Broadcasters have that much clout: the power to let someone be heard or not heard, at peak-time or midnight, sympathetically or sceptically – and yet that power is a hard thing for politicians to question without looking as if they want to wield it themselves.

Maybe that’s why no SNP committee member accused BBC bosses of the outright political bias they clearly believe to be operating at Pacific Quay. Far safer to talk underfunding than editorial policy.

Mark Thompson confirmed that Radio 4’s Today programme costs three times more to make than Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland (GMS) but then it attracts 16 times more listeners.

Indeed, the audience “share” for Today in Scotland is about the same as the share for GMS – surely that deserves some attention. Scots are wandering along the dial to hear “London-centric” UK and foreign news items even though GMS offers a “Scottish-centric” view of both. Why are these listeners happy to miss the Scottish perspective? Are they all English expats?

Or could it be that GMS just isn’t distinctive enough to rival authoritative Radio 4, cheerfully combative Radio 5 Live, easily digested Radio 2 or cool Radio 1?

Certainly, providing just one Scottish station in lieu of the many specialist “national” BBC networks has long been a Radio Scotland dilemma. But it was once Station of the Year, regularly collected Sony awards and aimed to provide a distinctively Scottish type of speech excellence. It’s not entirely clear that’s how Radio Scotland sees its mission today – and the same uncertainty hovers across much of BBC Scotland’s news and current affairs output.

Does Newsnight Scotland, for example, have to be a Caledonian version of Newsnight, mimicking (perhaps unconsciously) the world-weary Jeremy Paxman? STV’s Scotland Tonight has picked up a sizeable audience with a fresher, less pummelling programme where guests visibly relax instead of steeling themselves to battle remorseless negativity.

On the other hand, where are the searching BBC Scotland documentaries about the origins of or remedies for our appalling poverty and health records? Where was the definitive Megrahi documentary or the dissection of Rangers (until nightly scoops by a London-based Channel 4 reporter seemed to stir BBC Scotland into action).

Instead, current affairs relies on a small number of conveniently located commentators who hop nightly between the Pacific Quay studios of the BBC and STV. Does no-one outside the chattering classes or the Central Belt have a view on our constitutional future? Inverness, Aberdeen or Dundee all have studios and yet Scots living in these cities are vastly under-represented on BBC Scotland TV current affairs. Rural and small-town opinion is simply absent. This matters.

BBC producers have long complained that the public are apathetic towards politics in general and (now) the referendum in particular. And yet the Beeb’s own narrow selection of TV guests reinforces the impression that intelligent opinion is held only by the hyper-opinionated metropolitan few.

Apathy, like beauty, resides largely in the eye of the beholder. Profound change is rarely generated by those already “inside the loop”. So its metropolitan bias means BBC Scotland is missing several democratic tricks.

Part of the problem is the tyranny of the sofa – a conversational format which demands guests are seated round the presenter, no matter how many “meeting miles” are clocked up in the process. Existing technology could widen the scope of accents, backgrounds, perspectives and political outlook broadcast on BBC Scotland at a stroke. Why doesn’t that happen?

And why is party political balance the only issue of broadcasting fairness raised by MSPs?

Accepting the male, pale and stale in lieu of “hard to reach” diversity is a problem for every media operation, but it’s close to a dereliction of duty for a state-funded broadcaster. Is Aunty really reflecting “nation unto nation” by super-serving Scotland with a tiny cross-section of diverse national experience?

The head of Scotland’s library services, Martyn Wade, has observed that history is being lost – because what was once recorded on paper now appears on TV or online.

Yet we still don’t recognise the importance of such “ephemera” in our lives. The cumulative effect of visual messages banged home night after night on the BBC has a massive impact on public perceptions.

Does Scotland have more murders than anywhere else or just more daily reports outside murder trials? Do we have less aptitude for actually playing sport or just more TV hours of men watching football? Do we have more poverty or just more films about “chancers” like Marvin on The Scheme?

Some big questions need to be raised about the BBC – but who dares ask?