The long-awaited decision on whether Scotland is to have its own six o’clock television news programme is to be announced early in the New Year.
The so-called Scottish Six — which would be produced and presented in Scotland — has been the subject of debate for close to a decade, and the outcome is to be revealed in the BBC’s new charter, published in January.
Donalda Mackinnon, the newly-appointed director of BBC Scotland, said yesterday: “The decision will be announced, along with much of the charter’s decisions and proposals, at the beginning of the year by the director-general.
“Obviously we are starting a new charter at the beginning of January, and from then on in it will be clear what the funding settlement is for the rest of the UK, and within that will be whatever new arrangements there are for Scotland.”
However, Ms Mackinnon insisted that the Scottish Six would be rolled out only if there were sufficient funding to ensure its quality. If such funding is not available, she said, she will not sanction the programme.
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“We have had a debate about that,” she said. “One of the things that audiences in Scotland tell us the whole time is that quality is the most important thing for them, and it’s not about volume. So whatever we do I will push very hard to see that we have the appropriate investment for it. The last thing I want to do is short-change the audience.”
BBC Scotland has already produced pilots for a programme that could replace Reporting Scotland and The Six O’Clock News, and the project was backed this year by the culture committee at Westminster.
MPs said that it was “perfectly reasonable” for editorial decisions on broadcasts in Scotland to be made in Scotland.
Ms Mackinnon also revealed that the late-night current affairs programme Scotland 2016, which ended its run this month, will not be replaced on a daily basis. Instead, it is to go weekly.
“The plan is that early next year, hopefully by the end of January, we will be on air with a new programme, which is once a week, admittedly less than the previous programme, but at peak viewing time on BBC Two,” she said. “We haven’t fully finalised what configuration the programme will take, but that will come clear in the New Year.”