Broadcasting in Scotland lacks both "ambition and imagination" in reflecting the full range of Scottish culture and creativity, according to evidence gathered by the Scottish Broadcasting Commission.
Presenting its second interim report yesterday, the commission focused on the cultural impact of broadcasting. It also contains strong criticism of the BBC's coverage of the Edinburgh International Festival from its director, Jonathan Mills.
He says that the lack of coverage on BBC television of events at the festival represents a "failure of system, a failure of process and a failure of imagination of people who are remote from us and do not wish to engage with us".
Mr Mills was particularly angered that one of the main programmes shown on the BBC during the festival had been the Artworks Scotland show called 10 Things to Hate About the Edinburgh Festival.
Vicky Featherstone, the artistic director of the National Theatre, also lamented the fact that talented Scottish playwrights such as David Harrower, David Greig and Zinnie Harris are being commissioned for television in London, but not in Scotland.
The commission, led by Blair Jenkins, the former head of news at BBC Scotland, has also found that 82% of the public surveyed by the commission said they would be interested in watching a dedicated Scottish channel if one were launched, and that the biggest demand from viewers is for more Scottish news, documentaries and history or heritage programming.
Mr Jenkins said: "Much of the evidence we received conveyed a strong sense that broadcasting is out of touch or off the pace when it comes to recording and reflecting the cultural vitality and diversity of modern Scotland."
The commission gathered 26 hours of oral evidence from a number of prominent cultural figures, including the directors of Edinburgh festivals, cultural commentators such as Pat Kane, and the executives of the BBC and SMG.
Professor Seona Reid, the director of Glasgow School of Art, who is a member of the commission, said there was a strong feeling among those consulted in the arts that Scotland was "not well served" by its broadcasting.
But Donalda MacKinnon, head of programmes, BBC Scotland, said that she refused to accept the suggestion that BBC Scotland's output lacks ambition and imagination.
"The report is very selective in its observations and we believe does not give a fair reflection of the quality and range of production from in-house BBC Scotland teams and our partners in the independent sector," she said.
She said the reports figure that only 5% of output on BBC1 and BBC2 was originated in Scotland was "simply wrong".
"In actual fact, in 2006/07, network BBC1 and BBC2 broadcast 8603 hours of originated programmes, as noted in the BBC Annual Report . . . BBC Scotland was responsible for more than 10% of the comparable hours broadcast by network BBC1 and network BBC2 in 2006/07."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article