Seòmar agus comataidhean

We are interested in ferries, by the way—I am not saying that we are not interested in the ferries.

I return to the idea of quotas.

This will mortify my children, but I have never watched “The Traitors”. Last night, on my family’s WhatsApp group, there were 32 different interactions about the latest episode. My kids and their partners are all obsessed by it, but I have never watched it. I hear the objections to its being imposed on BBC Scotland and now being used by the BBC to justify what it does here, but it is hugely successful and is being exported all over the shop. The point was also made that “River City” will be finishing, which is another issue that the committee has discussed.

I am not sure that there is a huge deal of confidence that Ofcom will do the right thing in holding the BBC to account to ensure that there is more Scotland-based activity. Is there an agreed standard in the industry for what people would like to see as quotas for Scotland? Is there a way of defining the quotas, or are people happy with the current definition that is used, as long as it is used well, which might be the case with Channel 4 but not so much with the BBC? Is there a proposal that people in the industry agree would serve Scotland well?

I do not know whether it still does this, but I have mentioned before that Canada had a requirement whereby, whether on radio or TV, a certain proportion of output had to be Canadian. That was because it is right next to the powerhouse that is the United States. That seemed to be accepted by everybody. Within that, I think that it also had French-language quotas, but I could be wrong. The French, too, are very good at that. Would hard quotas not be a good thing for Scotland?

I took it from your answer to my second question that there would be no merit in trying to put together an offer that was inclusive of all the different interests in Scotland that could be marketed to appeal to international companies? If that is the case, I am more than willing to hear it.

On your point about our having the technicians and so on, the committee has previously heard, in a different inquiry, that that is under real threat, because “River City”, for example, is ending, with the result that the benefits of that long-running drama will be lost. Am I right in saying that you are not concerned about that, because you think that the offer that we have is the right one?

I will have a look and will get in touch if I can find an example.

I understand that, but my point was about staff involved in broadcasting, such as camera people, sound recordists and so on. Perhaps it was the wrong question for you.

My final question is about some points that John McLellan made. I represent an area that includes Clackmannanshire and part of Stirling. In the area, we have the Alloa & Hillfoots Advertiser, which has no reporters in Alloa that I am aware of. I think that it is run in Dunfermline as part of the Johnson group and much of its content is done by a reporter who uses AI to generate it. I am not being critical of that, because that is the way that things are going to some extent.

My question is for each of the witnesses. Is broadcasting in Scotland aware of and, as far as it is possible to be, ahead of the way in which AI might impact on it? How is AI being treated?

Although I lament the fact that the Alloa & Hillfoots Advertiser has no local reporters, it might well be forward thinking to have somebody use AI in that way. Are there other examples of how AI is being used in broadcasting? I will go to John McLellan first.

I am talking about journalists as well.

I agree, but I think that the critical friend has to be listened to sometimes, and that is the frustration that I have.

This is my last comment—it is not a question. In 2002, the Scottish Executive held a consultation on being able to smack your children—it was a big consultation at the time. In Clackmannanshire, people voted to be allowed to continue smacking their children. The headline in the Stirling Observer was “Clacks backs smacks”. I do not think that AI would give you that kind of individual headline. Anyway, that is all I wanted to ask.

More generally, one of the issues that the committee is discussing is the opportunities that exist in broadcasting in Scotland for people right the way from sound engineers to actors, producers and directors, and the impact that, for example, the cutting of “River City” has had or the changes at STV have had.

Given that, very occasionally, we have had big streaming organisations coming to Scotland to do a blockbuster—I will not say, “Is there not a case for this?”, because it seems unlikely that it will happen—it strikes me that there would surely be a benefit to having a standing cohort of people in Scotland who could provide such services, whether camera folk, producers or directors, and a process by which people could get into that cohort through education. In that way, you could sell to streaming organisations the case for doing things in Scotland by saying that we already had such people here.

My question is driven by the fact that, as the committee has heard in evidence, we are losing people as a result of the cutting of “River City”. Because it is a continuing soap, that means that people’s long-term prospects are going. There is also what we are hearing about STV news in the north-east. It would surely be a great selling point if we were to help to establish a block of people in Scotland who were qualified and able, at a moment’s notice, to turn their hand to that kind of work if, say, Netflix wanted to come in and do a story on Kirkpatrick Fleming, to give an example local to the Borders. Is there no way that such collaboration could happen between public sector broadcasters, the other mainstream broadcasters and the streamers? I put that to Nick in the first instance.

I am sorry that our time seems to be curtailed; in my view, this is one of the most interesting panels that we have had and I do not say that to just any panel. Given what the convener has said, instead of asking all the questions that I intended to ask, I will make a few comments, and I am keen to hear the response to them.

I agree with Professor Beveridge. I am a supporter of public sector broadcasting; I believe that the licence fee has a real role and that educating people about its purpose is important. However, the question is whether the BBC is best placed to perform that function. Two points have come out so far: first, the extent to which the BBC is relevant and, secondly, the extent to which it is trusted. The last point that Professor Happer made was really interesting but also worrying. Indeed, young people these days might be reacting to what the previous generation has done and now look at public sector broadcasting, teachers or parents in a way that they have not done in the past. Most of us talk to school classes, and we hear them say that they are struggling to find out where they can get information that they can trust. They are particularly worried about disinformation. I am not sure whether it is part of the curriculum, but we get asked a lot of questions about that.

On the question of trust in the BBC, I will give a few examples of why there might be a lower take-up of licences in Scotland. We have mentioned the 2014 referendum, when we saw an influx of people from the rest of the UK—the serious people who came up to do the coverage, some of whom were Scottish. The level of ignorance about the situation in Scotland—I am thinking of one very high-profile Scottish journalist, in particular, although they had been based in England for a long time—was appalling.

I have put the point to the BBC on a number of occasions that it continually says, “Scotland has two Governments,” and yet it will not scrutinise the UK Government. Obviously, if there is a budget happening, it will look at that, but I would note as an example that there is a lot of coverage these days about ferries in Scotland—for fairly justifiable reasons—and yet there has been no coverage whatsoever from a critical point of view of two aircraft carriers that were built for double the budget and which came in well over time. Those boats were built in Scotland and the costs were paid for by Scottish taxpayers as much as by anybody else. I have challenged both Gordon Brewer and Martin Geissler on this in the past, and their answer is that no one will come on to discuss those things, which seems to me to be an abdication of responsibility. The question of trust is, I think, very important.

On a minor point, BBC news programmes are meant to stop at a certain time to allow the Scottish version to come on, but they frequently overrun. When I raised this with the BBC, its appalling response was that, “Yeah, sometimes something happens.” That is not what I am talking about; the programmes overrun routinely, which shows contempt for the programme coming after. However, the BBC seems unwilling to respond to that.

As for accountability, things got so bad here that the Scottish National Party group in the Parliament invited Tim Davie to come and speak to us. It was quite unusual for someone like that to speak to a political group, but he had done it routinely for Tory and Labour groups at Westminster. He quite happily admitted to us that every day of the week in London, he would have senior Labour and Tory figures banging down his door, complaining about this, that or the other. That does not happen to the same extent in Scotland and, if it did, it would not carry the same weight. The question of accountability is important, and I do not think that the BBC is accountable in Scotland.

It was Professor Happer, I think, who asked about the extent to which the Parliament or the Government in Scotland are listened to. My view is that they are not listened to at all. Of course, the big issue is that, when the devolution settlement happened, it was made sure that broadcasting stayed a reserved matter. There is a reason why that was done, as we have seen over the years.

I really believe in the BBC, and always have done, but we are, to some extent, just dancing on the head of a pin. The first comments that were made this morning were about the print media, which I note is accessed by only 12 per cent of the population. YouTube has also been mentioned; more people—I do not know whether it is more young people or more people in general—will, when they put on the TV, go to YouTube, not to the BBC or any other channel. Therefore, we are, as I have said, dancing on the head of a pin. We are talking about huge trends, and it is hard to see how they can be resisted. The best course of action is to be more accountable, more trusted and more relevant.

Finally, on the point of relevance, something that we are seeing not just with the BBC but with other channels—Sky is probably the worst—is that, when they have a news review, they get in some vaguely leftish journalist and some vaguely rightish journalist in order to have balance. I have seen a couple of examples of this on Sky. Everyone routinely slates the Scottish Government, because all three involved in the programme, including the presenter—Anna Botting is an example—have happily agreed to do so, and there is no right of reply. That is the kind of coverage that we are getting at a time when only 12 per cent of the population read the print media. The emphasis is disproportionate—not only that, but the fact is that broadcasters take their lead from the print media. The longer that the BBC and other broadcasters are not trusted and are not deemed to be relevant, the more dangerous their position gets.

I know that I have made a number of points, but I will finish on this one. Professor Happer, I know that you did not say it this way, but you suggested that young people—or, indeed, teachers or parents—might go more to public sector broadcasters, because there is nowhere else to go. That is really dangerous, because the broadcasters’ sense of complacency gets worse. They know that people are guaranteed to come to them because of the absence of a better alternative. That is a really dangerous position.

I suppose that my questions are about credibility, accountability, relevance and the way in which the BBC is trusted. I know that the BBC has made some attempts with fact-checking approaches and so on, but the fact that it is now so London-centric is, I think, driving the disaffection felt by people, especially young people, in Scotland for public sector broadcasting.

I know that there was a lot in there, but I would be happy to hear the panel’s comments. Are you stunned?