Broadcasting

in the

Scottish Borders

A consultation

By

 Christine Grahame MSP

 A submission to

The Scottish Broadcasting Commission

15^th April 2008

Summary

Christine Grahame MSP issued a postal consultation to a sample of 20,000 households in the Scottish Borders following representations from constituents about television and radio services.  Responses have been received representing the views of over 7,000 residents of the Scottish Borders.

The conclusion is that Scottish Borderers feel very poorly served by broadcasting services because of a combination of ITV provider based in Carlisle, geography and BBC bias towards SW & Central Scotland.  This is particularly noticeable in the lack of local news and programmes about the Scottish Borders.  There are also deficiencies in radio provision the most glaring of which is the absence of Radio Scotland from the stations available on DAB.  Transmission reception is a major problem.

Recommendations

• Scottish Borders should have their ITV content supplied by STV with added local input.
• BBC should improve their local reporting.
• Radio Scotland and local radio should be added to the DAB stations available.
• Early consideration should be given to improving the signal strength, number of transmitters and relays and therefore coverage and availability of channels on terrestrial TV including Freeview.
• TV licence rebates or other assistance should available for this who cannot receive terrestrial TV and have to use Sky satellite system.
• Information and guidance on digital television needs to be improved.
• Responsibility for broadcasting should be transferred to the Scottish Government
• A ‘Scottish 6’ should be established on BBC.
• Scotland’s qualifying football matches should be shown on a ‘free to view’ channel.

Background

The Scottish Borders area receives ITV broadcasts from Borders TV a service located in Carlisle and focussed on NW England.  Consequently news bulletins, programmes and also advertising feature Carlisle, Cumbria and the Isle of Man.  However the residents of the Scottish Borders have their strong links with Scotland and Edinburgh as the nearest city.  ITV is to transfer to the Tyne Tees area with savings also being made by ITV.  This will make the situation even worse for Scottish Borderers.  The BBC input has a noticeable focus on Dumfries and Galloway.  There is therefore a major gap in local news and programme provision on television in the Scottish Borders.  The situation regarding radio is better.

The geography of the Scottish Borders – hills and valleys – make broadcast reception problematical in some areas.  This forces many to rely on Sky satellite transmission to receive any picture.  Areas which can receive terrestrial transmissions often do so at limited signal strength making picture reception malfunction and teletext services unreadable.  The transport and social links from the Scottish Borders are with Edinburgh (a direct rail link will commence construction in 2011).  The political links are with Scotland and the Scottish Parliament which make news reporting from Cumbria (or Tyneside) inappropriate as many respondents commented.  Broadband provision is poor and therefore not an alternative source of broadcasts.

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