Public broadcasting in Scotland

The broadcasting landscape in Scotland is diverse and vibrant, with viewers able to choose from an increasingly wide range of content, much of which is made specifically for viewers in Scotland. Many domestically successful and internationally renowned TV shows continue to be filmed in Scotland and some are produced there in their entirety. While there are challenges around skills shortages, we are encouraged by public service broadcasters’ and streaming services’ commitments to develop the Scottish screen industry and lay the foundations for future production activity there. (Paragraph 15) Recent and ongoing developments

The favourable reception of the BBC Scotland channel shows that, despite longstanding concerns about how Scotland is represented and portrayed on BBC services, Scottish audiences respond positively to BBC content that reflects them and their lives. In a world of continuing budget constraints as well as increasing co-commissions with global as well as UK partners, the BBC must continue to produce output that is relevant to Scottish audiences, and ensure its internal resourcing decisions enable this. We welcome the Mid-Term Review and the BBC’s own Across the UK strategy as important opportunities to make further progress on this.

We welcome the decision to keep Channel 4 in public ownership, and the commitments it has agreed with the UK Government on investment in skills and jobs outside of London as part of that decision. The evidence we took suggests this decision will help to support the continued growth of TV production in Scotland—especially among independent producers—with both cultural and economic benefits for Scotland.

While we acknowledge the UK Government has made a commitment to maintain Freeview for a significant number of years yet, we see no reason why the forthcoming Ofcom review should prevent the UK Government from giving certainty of continued coverage beyond 2034 to households in Scotland reliant on Freeview at the earliest opportunity. We recommend that the UK Government signal that it will maintain Freeview beyond 2034. To support this, the UK Government should fully capitalise on the upcoming World Radiocommunication Conference in November and place Freeview high up the agenda to help address this uncertainty as soon as possible. (Paragraph 35) Broadcast of sporting events

We are firmly of the view that the current lack of opportunities to watch Scottish international football on free-to-air broadcast is letting down fans in Scotland, who are at a disadvantage compared to fans in England and (for now) Wales. The UK Government must be more proactive in acknowledging and responding Public broadcasting in Scotland 23 to the frustration this situation is causing in Scotland. We also wish to see more examples of public service broadcasters and subscription services making deals to share rights to international football and other major sporting events.

The UK Government should communicate a clear expectation to public service broadcasters in Scotland that they should be regularly and proactively approaching subscription services which have purchased the rights to broadcast major Scottish sporting events, to explore options for sharing those rights. It should also clearly communicate to subscription services and the national sporting bodies that act as rights holders that it expects them to carefully consider the public interest benefits of public service broadcasters having a share in these rights in this way.

The UK Government should also establish a review to consider options to improve free-to-air access to Scottish international football. This should involve representatives from Viaplay and Sky as the current and former purchasers of the rights to broadcast Scottish international football, the Scottish Football Association as the rights holder, and public service broadcasters. If the review is unable to come up with effective solutions within the existing commercial rights framework, it should recommend interventions the UK Government should make to ensure more Scottish international football is available to watch free-to-air, potentially including expanding the specific Scottish events covered under the listed events regime to include not just the Scottish FA Cup final but also Scotland’s World Cup and European Championship qualifiers. (Paragraph 45) Broadcasting policy reform

We agree that reforms to the existing legislative framework are necessary to help to secure the future sustainability and quality of public service broadcasting in the UK. However, we are concerned at the lack of a clear timetable to debate the UK Government’s planned reforms in Parliament. The UK Government should remain committed to legislating for these reforms before the end of this parliamentary session. We recommend that the UK Government schedule parliamentary time to begin considering the Media Bill within the next two months.

We support the UK Government’s proposal to extend the prominence regime for public service broadcasters to cover on-demand PSB content hosted on designated internet-enabled TV platforms. The technological developments driving the need for this change make this a time-sensitive reform, and representatives of public service broadcasters we heard from were unanimous in their assessment of its importance. The UK Government should bring forward this reform within the next two months, in line with our recommendation on the timing of debate on the wider Media Bill.

While content from BBC Scotland and BBC ALBA is available on BBC iPlayer, the high-profile status of which makes this content more easily discoverable, content from STV will be harder for Scottish viewers to find if STV Player is seen by new global TV platforms as a less important ‘regional’ on-demand 24 Public broadcasting in Scotland service. It is unacceptable that STV’s content should be less accessible to viewers in Scotland due to a lack of regionalisation by internet-enabled TV platforms. The UK Government’s prominence reforms should specifically require that TV platforms being used in Scottish households must carry STV’s on-demand services and feature them prominently.

Setting up an inter-ministerial group on media and culture would be a welcome and sensible step to help formalise conversations between the UK and devolved Governments on broadcasting-related issues, not least facilitating a joined- up approach to ensuring the continued growth of Scotland’s screen sector. We recommend that such a group should be established this year, and that its terms of reference should include skills in the UK screen industry. We also call on the Scottish Government to further prioritise its work on screen industry skills in Scotland, to work in tandem with the inter-ministerial group. (Paragraph 59) Public broadcasting in Scotland 25