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That is all that I want to ask about that.

My other question harks back to an earlier session that we had with Historic Environment Scotland, which I found very unsatisfactory. I will take the chance to raise the issue now. My question stems from my view that Historic Environment Scotland sits on a huge number of extremely valuable and important assets in Scotland and, in my view, fails to make the proper return on those assets. That may be for reasons to do with budgeting and capital investment, and I accept that there are budget constraints. However, I am looking for reassurance that, with the new chairperson, whom I have not met, we will see more entrepreneurial activity. For example, I asked about a particular property. HES had said that properties were open, but it turns out that they were not open to the public. HES had just finished doing the work that it thought that it had to do. The particular example was Clackmannan tower.

These things can be potentially extremely valuable if they are tied into particular, discrete interests from the Scottish diaspora around the world, for example, and that is not happening. I hope that the new chairperson—at your behest, I hope, cabinet secretary—will take such opportunities very seriously. At a previous meeting, we discussed the huge upsurge in festival attendance and in the vibrancy of festivals. We should capitalise on these assets as well. I look for reassurance from you in that regard.

It is for Sir Mark to ask. I have said to him that we will support anything that he deems as necessary for him to deal with the challenges at root in Historic Environment Scotland. I will leave it for him to ask for what he thinks he requires, but where he has made clear what he needs in capacity and support, we have made that happen. I will look sympathetically on any suggestion that he might have, and I have ruled nothing out.

I should tell the witnesses that we recently had the BBC before the committee to discuss its decision to cut back at “River City”, and the loss of back-office jobs and skills was an issue that was raised then.

The 10-year licence was applied for only last year and started only this year, so in the same year that STV pitched for the licence, it wants to make these radical changes and cuts. Do you think that there is some bad faith going on here, such that it applied for the licence, knowing it was not going to see through its terms, but, in getting the licence, it fended off competition and is now moving forward to make these cuts? Do you think that that is what is going on here?

Do you see Scotland as a region?

I am not sure that you are grasping the point that the public looking at this will just think that the licensing process was a complete sham.

I turn to my final question. You have said—for good reason, I am sure—that you are not able to break down the £3 million of savings and where those might come from. Will you put a figure on what it will cost you to establish the radio station, and will you put a figure on bonuses for senior executives, just to give us an idea of the context?

It will appear odd to people, and to Ofcom, too, that you said that you are trying to protect regional news gathering but that you are doing that by getting rid of the infrastructure to deliver it. That was not a question, just a comment, convener. Thanks.

I hope that someone else will cover the digital exclusion angle.

Your evidence mentions the European football championships and the world cup. Of course I am going to the match tonight. If Scotland were to win that and to qualify, you can imagine that the viewing figures will go right up. It would be interesting to know the difference in the reporting from Aberdeen from the reporting in the central belt of Aberdeen’s victory in the Scottish cup last year. You will not get that distinctive coverage. Do you think that, for those or other reasons, the company could generate substantially more income in the next year? It is not just a change in direction; the company has done a U-turn, and it will have to do a U-turn again. That is not the sign of a stable board that is taking a longer-term view.

I really should congratulate STV because, uniquely in advance of an election, you have managed to unite all the political parties against your proposal, which takes some doing.

Given your experience as a professional in the media sector, should the proposal go through, what will that mean for the diversity of local broadcast media in Scotland as compared with other countries of a similar size? We heard earlier, for example, that licences are granted to much smaller areas, including the Channel Islands. If you consider together what is left of the BBC, which is cutting back by scrapping “River City”, and what you are proposing, what would be the comparative health of the diversity of local broadcast media in Scotland?

You referred to “modest investment”. I am just looking for a figure. Bearing in mind that that was not a licence requirement, how much has been spent on it?

Ofcom has been pointing out these trends over a decade of its reporting, so the situation cannot have caught STV by surprise. It also committed to substantial investment in the Glasgow and Aberdeen facilities. I just wonder how it can go from that to this situation. I come back to the point about whether it negotiated the licence in bad faith, cordoning it off from any other people coming in and bidding for it. STV gets the licence and then it suddenly reveals a few months later the dramatic changes and huge cuts that are being talked about.

On the job losses and the loss of output from the north-east, I wonder whether it seems to you that STV has a unique selling point, given that nobody else provides what STV provides in the north of Scotland. If it gets rid of that USP, no one else will provide that. It is giving up its USP, in what seems a bit of knee-jerk reaction to a share price drop. Are there other areas that it could look at to try to make sure that it gets through the process without cutting jobs and giving up the USP of the regionalised reporting that it does?