Demise of Good Morning Scotland shows BBC is losing the plot

For those who cling to the concept of public service broadcasting, that sounds a little ominous. After 52 years, GMS might well be due for pensioning off but the direction of travel raises its own questions.

According to BBC Scotland, “we need to respond to the audience shift to commercial audio and streaming rivals”. Fair enough, there is no disputing the challenge as ground shifts at a rate no broadcaster can keep pace with.

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Why?

Yet clarity about priorities and obligations within that landscape become correspondingly more urgent. To what extent should the territory of serious broadcasting be ceded or defended? To what extent does BBC Radio Scotland fulfil an essential purpose?

“Radio Scotland Breakfast”, as the new offering is imaginatively titled, is the creation of Victoria Easton Reilly, head of “audio and events” at Pacific Quay who is credited with winning more listeners to Radios Forth and Clyde in her previous calling.

Ms Easton Reilly’s mission, we must assume, is now to claim the same market for BBC Radio Scotland and the obvious question is: “Why?” Is there pressing evidence that this market is under-supplied? Or indeed, is the middle of the road not already overcrowded?

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An alternative narrative could be that commercial radio is generally better at being pacy and informal than anything BBC Radio Scotland is likely to produce. On the other hand, the “informative” aspect shows a significant Scottish deficit which our public service broadcaster could be much better at filling.

The certainty is that nobody else will. So maybe that is where potential exists to eat into the 82 per cent of the market who rarely if ever consider switching to BBC Radio Scotland as it exists, even if it takes time and patience to build that audience.

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The problem with bite-sized news

Does it really matter if the share is 15 or 18 or 20 per cent compared to the question of whether the station is providing the output that only a public service broadcaster, funded by the licence payer, will conceivably offer?

It is convenient to caricature this as a generational conflict of expectations. Anyone who defends Lord Reith’s mission to inform, educate and entertain risks being accused of existing in a time-warp. On the contrary, I would argue, there has never been a time when Reithian principles are more in need of defending, in Scotland as much as anywhere.

One problem for BBC Radio Scotland is that there are not enough resources or bite-size news to pad out seven hours each day, in three long stretches. The strain of trying frequently shows and they can’t wait to get on to sport.

Yet at the same time, there are very few opportunities within the schedules for in-depth reporting or debate on issues of substance, the complexity of which may well defy the pit-pat format which is the staple diet. And there are few other speech-based programmes of substance.

The listener can, of course, turn to Radio 4 but that is not a satisfactory Scottish solution. There is only one national radio network in Scotland and only one public service broadcaster. More thought has to be given to how these roles are being fulfilled.

Informed debate, in-depth reporting

In the political world, I accept there is no mass audience available for in-depth coverage of legislation about housing, land reform or other current subjects which will have significant implications for Scottish society. Yet if the public service broadcaster does not provide a platform for informed debate and challenge around these issues, who else is going to?

The answer is pretty obvious – nobody. Does the fact that huge areas of Scottish political and public life go virtually unexamined in any depth matter less than marginal differences in audience ratings?

Like any society, Scotland is not a monolith. It includes huge regional variations and multiple specialist interests which should stake a claim on the nation’s public service broadcaster. That test cannot be measured solely in terms of numbers, as opposed to the duty to reflect the depth and diversity of Scottish society.

STV’s commercial concerns

At present, STV is being castigated for their plans to end the distinctive north of Scotland news bulletin from its Aberdeen studio which has survived for 60 years, offering a different geographical perspective on Scotland’s news agenda.

Again, STV blames changes in the way audiences consume news though the fact that up to 60 jobs are to be shed is doubtless another factor in their calculations. The north’s bulletins represent the last vestige of Grampian Television which served northern Scotland well before being gobbled up by STV and allowed regional issues to be aired.

The alternative will not be a balanced view of Scotland from the Glasgow studio. Instead, it will be the relegation of matters which disproportionately affect large areas of Scotland but are of less interest to the Central Belt, which is where most of the viewers are. It is difficult to see how this represents progress in any sense.

The defence from STV is that they are a commercial concern which must compete in a challenging market. This makes it all the more important that BBC Scotland is driven by other imperatives. It might never win the ratings battle but it should never lose sight of why it exists.

This is not an argument about the constitution as some will inevitably try to pretend. It is about how a public service broadcaster responds to changing circumstances – high ground, low ground or middle of the road? That is a debate which should be engaged in before it is too late.