Fears over politics TV programme met with reassurances

IN the end, a reassurance – to the contrary – killed the story, dead.

Yesterday, you might have been reading of an MSP’s outrage that stv were apparently about to do away with its politics programme, Politics Now.

But a media release issued by the SNP’s Alex Neil was met by a statement from stv, reassuring that the programme would be continuing until the Scottish elections – in May – to be replaced by a current affairs programme at a much more civilised time than the ‘graveyard slot’ usually allocated to Politics Now.

There was Neil saying: “I really do believe that the cancellation of this show is ill thought-out.”

And, in response, stv was saying Politics Now will continue to run on stv until the Scottish elections and that, the morning after the elections, there will be a full analysis programme. And that, from the middle of next year, there is to be a new current affairs programme, scheduled to broadcast in peak viewing time – at 7.30pm.

In the end, the biggest show was a couple of pars on page two of the Daily Record.

Not that current affairs necessarily equates to politics. But a stv spokesperson said: “Viewers should be assured that stv programming will continue to reflect the political scene across Scotland in 2007.”