05/07/2007

Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, whose spirited defence of Scotland’s independence ended in failure 300 years ago this year, once remarked that if a man were allowed to make a nation’s ballads he would not care who made the country’s laws.  

If Fletcher was alive today he would surely have substituted the words ‘TV and radio programmes’ for ballads because, today, the most powerful levers for a nation’s well-being or ill are not in the hands of politicians but of the broadcasters.  

The Saltire Society, for seventy years the country’s leading cultural organisation, now believes that Scotland is in real danger of sleep-walking into a broadcasting disaster.

While drama, music, literature, history are pushed to the margins or removed altogether, and serious political coverage is at best a late night add-on, we see the inexorable rise of so-called ‘reality’ shows, mind-numbing phone-ins, inconsequential celebrity-driven chatter and wall-to-wall football.

But this dumbing down is only the outward sign of an even more destructive agenda. Scottish broadcasters, who already source only a limited amount of material in Scotland, are likely to reduce this to a token when a new regulatory framework allows them to so. 

The outcome of this will, of course, be the further decline in Scotland’s creative industries at the very time when such skills and experience are vital to the well-being of a new, self-confident nation. 

Scottish broadcasting matters now more than at any time in the last fifty years and, therefore, the Saltire Society is launching a campaign to focus public attention on the dangers.

We are calling on all those who share our concerns to demand urgent action to arrest the current deteriorating situation. Those responsible for governance, planning, commissioning and programming must be made to recognise their responsibilities and act appropriately.

Our campaign will firstly urge the UK and Scottish governments to produce a strategy that secures and strengthens the broadcasting industries in Scotland, with their vital skills base, for the future. 

We will highlight the low level of Channel 4 commissions to Scotland-based companies and will encourage broadcasting regulators, Ofcom, to retain, rather than greatly diminish, as seems their present intention, weekly regional programming requirements for ITV companies after the imminent switchover to multi-channel, digital TV.

On the vital question of cultural content, we will invite BBC Scotland to lay out and consult on their plans for high-quality coverage of arts, history, literature and culture, as part of their service licence renewal. 

Finally, we will campaign for the transfer of responsibility for broadcasting regulations from Westminster to Holyrood, as a cultural and therefore an unreserved matter and seek the eventual creation of an autonomous BBC Scotland financed by licence fees paid in Scotland. 

It is the Society’s view that this division of powers between London and Scotland, and also between the BBC and Ofcom, means that Scottish broadcasting has no independent champion. Unless the politicians and civic society in Scotland, including concerned citizens, express their views, the present unsatisfactory position will continue to deteriorate. 

And in the end, this country will pay a very high price for our lack of vigilance.

Ian Scott, chair, Saltire Society

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During the following weeks on allmediascotland.com, read Why Scottish Broadcasting Matters from over a dozen writers commissioned by the Saltire Society, some of whom will agree with the above sentiments, others not.

Next Thursday: Why Scottish Broadcasting Matters, by Professor Alan Riach, Glasgow University.