Five Live and the Scottish Six

[Scottish_Republican]

[quote=Gypsum_Fantastic;399123The idea that Scots are somehow being denied the right to cultural expression is simply untrue.[/QUOTE]

(caps not working well on keyboard)
there is a DIY channel. there is a gameshow channel

there is even a welsh channel.

but can the Scots get one? no sir

Scotland deserves a channel. Unlike some people I have travelled round the world, and know what the score is. Any argument against five million getting a single tv channel is a myth.

the argument that River City is substandard is a myth. all soaps are terrible, and Rc is not the worst by a long shot. production would improve with a proper channel. scotland is like the child whose parents keep on telling that it is useless and grows up with a neurosis that it can't do anything

[Scotsgait]

Originally Posted by NovaBritannia

Widely reported? - By who?

Widely reported throughout the UK media

Originally Posted by NovaBritannia

Reason given? - By who?

Michael Grade and Mark Thompson made such claims at the OFCOM conference in Cardiff the month before last.

(Still waiting for evidence of those "glaring logical flaws" which you seem to think I made....)

[Gypsum_Fantastic]

Originally Posted by Scottish_Republican

Come the finals in Croke Park, not as "popular" as you might think.

I'm under no delusions about their popularity or otherwise. One of the arguments I hear for the licence fee is the unspoken influence the BBC has in areas where the government cannot reach and the goodwill to the country that it builds up in these places as a result of the BBC, in particular. I was curious as to whether you knew this to be the case or not.

Originally Posted by Scottish_Republican

there is a DIY channel. there is a gameshow channel

there is even a welsh channel.

but can the Scots get one? no sir

Apart from Scottish Television and BBC Scotland. The fact that they are failures and that STV, in particular, is doing nothing to harness creativity in Scotland is not an argument that we don't have a Scottish channel. We have two good size channels based in Scotland and our artistic and creative people also have access to another market in London. The fact they fail to have any serious impact in either case is not a legitimate case for a government-imposed Scottish channel (whatever that means). It sounds simply like protectionism for people who have failed to convince the market of their worth.

Originally Posted by Scottish_Republican

the argument that River City is substandard is a myth.

It isn't a myth. It's my opinion. It's available throughout the UK but its audience share is tiny. I'm not a huge soap opera fan but the quality of the writing, acting, direction and overall production is vastly inferior to Coronation Street. How do you fix that? Oh yeah, by getting Alex Salmond on the case.

Originally Posted by Scottish_Republican

production would improve with a proper channel.

Production standards are not some gift of the government or a licence body. They are either part of the cultural way that a production company operates or they're not. They're either important to the commissioning editor in question or they're not. You give no evidence, which suggests you don't have a clue how it would happen, why production standards will miraculously improve with 'a proper channel' (whatever that means).

Little wonder that someone like Elaine C Smith - who can't even get arrested nowadays - is a cheerleader for this 'proper channel'. What is exceptionally annoying is that this drive to lower standards, shut ourselves off and provide guaranteed commissions for the talentless and unemployable is being presented as broadening of Scottish horizons and culture!

[Scottish_Republican]

Originally Posted by Gypsum_Fantastic

Apart from Scottish Television and BBC Scotland.

Sorry, you lose. Neither of these is actually a channel, but a regional variation.

The only thing "STV" seemed to have produced last year is Rebus

A look through the TV schedules proves that the Scottish made content on BBC1, BBC2 & ITV is minimal. These are not "Scottish" channels - most of their content comes from London and across the pond.

"River City" is bad. But this is not an argument against Scottish TV. It's like saying that "El Dorado" invalidates all of the BBC - in fact "El Dorado" was far worse!

"a government-imposed Scottish channel "

Government imposed? Are you having a laugh? It's the government which hands out the licences.

"Production standards are not some gift of the government or a licence body."

No. Production standards are the gift of decent studios, decent financing, and no cringe.

Come up with some arguments other than self-loathing, and "we're not good enough".

I'm sorry, but I'm not some Scottish hayseed who can be bought off with daft ideas like "we can't do it", "everything that comes out of Scotland is crap", and "it happens nowhere else". I know that there are hundreds of successful channels that serve populations far below five million. Each American, Canadian and German city has their own channel. Remote areas of Australia even do.

So what's stopping us other than defeatism?

[Gypsum_Fantastic]

Originally Posted by Scottish_Republican

Sorry, you lose. Neither of these is actually a channel, but a regional variation.

So what is a Scottish channel? A channel based in Scotland with entirely Scottish content?

Originally Posted by Scottish_Republican

A look through the TV schedules proves that the Scottish made content on BBC1, BBC2 & ITV is minimal.

That's right. I said that. You don't explain how your 'solution' will fix this. As I've said, all it would offer is guaranteed work for those who can't get it outside Scotland. Is that what you want? If the quality of the output was there, there is no question it would be picked up nationally and internationally. As Spike Lee said of Hollywood - 'the only colour Hollywood cares about is green.' If you could prove that there was a range of fine Scottish programming that was being ignored then you may have a point. I just don't see it.

Originally Posted by Scottish_Republican

No. Production standards are the gift of decent studios, decent financing, and no cringe.

A decent studio is one where production standards are valued so it's a circular argument to suggest that we need decent studios for production standards when they only exist because they value such standards. Financing can be a problem - the gross mismanagement of STV by SMG springs to mind - but it's not enough to explain the situation.

Originally Posted by Scottish_Republican

Come up with some arguments other than self-loathing, and "we're not good enough".

I've never said we're not good enough. I've said that the talent hasn't manifested itself - partly because it hasn't been harnessed - to justify the argument that we 'need' a Scottish-only channel for cultural expression. I'd suggest this is a cultural problem internal to Scottish studios and the Scottish media, in general. You disagree. We move on.