THE news and current programme on STV, Scotland Tonight, has only been on our TV screens for a year, but – says The Scotsman’s Alice Wylie – in the 12 months since the very first episode went live “it’s begun to feel like a bit of an institution”.
Writes Wylie today of the show which is presented alternately by John MacKay and Rona Dougall, Scotland Tonight pulls in 100,000 viewers each night, up 18 per cent since it started. The show regularly has twice the number of viewers as its BBC counterpart, Newsnight Scotland.
In an interview with both presenters, MacKay is quoted, as saying: “We’ve got a slightly different style from Newsnight Scotland, there was a gap that needed to be filled and we’ve done it, in a more relaxed style.”
Continues Wylie: “Dougall came to Scotland Tonight after spending 15 years as the Scotland correspondent for Sky News and had no presenting experience, but wowed STV bosses in her screen test, while MacKay, who has been the STV news at six anchor since 1994, is something of a veteran, who has helped to show his colleague the ropes over the last year.”
The 30-minute programme goes out live at 10:30pm, Monday-to-Thursday, on STV.
