Battered BBC

I read with interest Brian Wilson’s column, “Saying bye-bye to BBC is a bad idea” (Perspective, 29 August). In fact, the BBC is effectively saying bye-bye to Scotland. The irony of your report, in the same edition, of 35 new redundancies at BBC Scotland, should be lost on no-one. This is just the latest blow in a “death by a thousand cuts”, particularly 
affecting news and current affairs. The staff in this department, in which I served for more than 30 years, have constantly fought to provide Scotland with the quality of reportage and analysis which England and Wales receive from London but with a fraction of the resources.

The impact on our screens and radios of the repeated shedding of staff is already obvious.

The economies directed by the director general are having a disproportionate and highly damaging impact on BBC Scotland. However, the question First Minister Alex Salmond must answer is: if the BBC can 
no longer fund a top-class news and current affairs operation in Scotland, how can an SBC?

I fear he may view buying 
EastEnders from the BBC as a more popular use of funds than journalists reporting and analysing an independent Scotland.

KIT FRASER

Belhaven

Dunbar

In the arguments over Scotland’s proportion of the BBC, it could be said that Scotland currently pays for and watches £300 million worth of BBC television, of which £60m worth is made in Scotland.

Who is to say that the ratio would be any different should Scotland have direct control over the whole £300m budget?

If the likes of EastEnders are to be shown they would still have to be paid for out of that budget, along with myriad other foreign (mainly American) shows that the populace currently enjoys (unless it is simply proposed to freeload on Freeview).

Failing such a deal, with what would the SNP replace them?

Perhaps it is planned to 
commission a PPI deal with Alex’s friend Mr Murdoch to run the system.

Peter Kent

Meikle Wartle

Aberdeenshire