London-based companies dominate BBC output in Scotland
A new report from Oliver & Ohlbaum Associates Ltd (O&O), commissioned by Screen Scotland, reveals much of the BBC’s “Scottish” network quota is, in fact produced by London-based companies. The report will come as a surprise to nobody with a passing knowledge of the industry. It’s a situation that’s been allowed to develop because their output is qualified as ‘Scottish’ under Ofcom’s guidance on regional production and regional programme definitions which include companies with a branch office in Scotland.
80% of the total episodes made by the Top 15 for the BBC were commissioned from producers headquartered in London. Only five of the Top 15 “Scottish” producers (by hours commissioned) were headquartered in Scotland over the period.
Channel 4 does marginally better than the BBC. 80% of the total episodes made by the Top 15 for the BBC were commissioned from producers headquartered in London, compared to only 43% of the total episodes commissioned by Channel 4.
The research was commissioned by Screen Scotland ahead of the implementation of the Media Act 2024, the upcoming Public Service Media Review from Ofcom. Read the full report HERE.
It’s a remarkable situation on so many fronts. First, the national broadcaster, paid for by the public in Scotland, fails to deliver jobs, economic investment, creativity, local storytelling, or a connected ecosystem of cultural output for the people of Scottish viewers and listeners. BBC Scotland output is, effectively, outsourced to England.
Second, no-one -at any level has thought this odd or chosen to do anything about it. No-one at the head of the BBC in Scotland thought they might do something about this. Steve Carson, the nominal head of the BBC in Scotland certainly didn’t, and with broadcasting a reserved power, there seemed to be no-one in the Scottish Government with oversight of the industry and its output.
David Smith, Director of Screen Scotland said: “This research shows that the BBC has, across the last decade, met much of its Scottish volume quota for network TV [meaning national services such as BBC One and BBC Two] via projects bought, sold and owned in London.
“We are concerned that this subverts the purpose of those production quotas, limiting the economic impact of the BBC’s “Scottish qualifying” commissioning in the Scottish economy, and reducing creative opportunities for Scottish TV sector companies or workers in comparison to projects that originate in Scotland. This raises questions around both the BBC’s commissioning priorities, and Ofcom’s current rules for production across the UK.”
“Channel 4 meanwhile has adopted a different, and more positive approach – largely looking to producers formed and headquartered in Scotland to make Scottish qualifying programmes. This will have contributed to Scotland’s economy and provided employment for Scotland-based crew.”
The situation is lamentable.
If there were any political drive or impetus to do anything about this the implementation of the Media Act 2024, the upcoming Public Service Media Review from Ofcom and BBC Charter Renewal in 2027 would provide opportunities to overhaul the situation and provide the jobs and cultural output that broadcasting in Scotland that we deserve. Questions must be asked of the Scottish Government, Ofcom and ‘BBC Scotland’ for this dire situation.
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And this, while important in terms of jobs and revenue, is almost the least of it…
By which I mean to say, it really doesnt address the cultural quedtion, which is that Scotland has virtually no presence or identity in the global film and tv scene at all, except that which the Americans decide to bestow upon us with their flakey take on our history and culture…
Almost no one in the SNP seems to get it either…
Some of the smaller countries with a very strong presence at A international film festivals (Cannes, Venice, Berlin) are Portugal ( Pedro Costa, Rita Alvarez Gomez, Miguel Gomez) Romania (Cristi Piui, Radu Jude, Cristian Mingui), and of course, Denmark….so hardly fckn world super power status…
How long are people going to put up with this London fixated sht before raising their voices?
Ewan MacGregor and Brian Cox and Tidla Swinton and Mark Cousins can all fck off to London for good unless they start speaking out about this absolute rip off arrangement…
Lamentable indeed. Query however:
“…with broadcasting a reserved power, there seemed to be no-one in the Scottish Government with oversight of the industry and its output.”
Sorry, which Gov?
I’m not following you Radio Jammor?
The feeling is mutual.
I’m sure you know – and as stated – that broadcasting is reserved; so why query ScotGov on it? Shouldn’t this really be aimed at UKGov?
If it’s the overlapping cultural aspect of this that you’re indirectly referring to, then surely this falls at the ScotGov door of Angus Robertson?
Yeah your right, if its reserved then its not the SGs responsibility. I still think its incredible nobody has picked p on this. Yes it would be Angus Robertson’s dept.
Angus Robertdon is a useless fckn cnt who just has no idea whatsoever about film and tv, compared to plenty of us who have actually worked in the industry, with Oscar winning producers, outside of Scotland obviously, for decades and look st the total nothingness of this cottage shadow industry in total despair…
Screen Scot just shot yet another version of Jeckyll and Hyde, wow, having backed a remake of Whisky Galore not so long ago it is pathetic. It’s basically a TV industry with the odd film… and simply dreadful, awful gatekeepers…
The SNP govt is a never ending shitshow when it comes to something as essential to national identity as film in this day age…
Neither the novel or poetry come anywhere close in international to film, to film-makers who have interests and curiosity rooted in the place they come from, its history and culture…
Everyone is from somewhere and no one is so cosmopolitan as to have been everywhere, as Angus Calder put it…
I am arguing for a fully nationalist film policy based on our financial limitations, which is to say, for a cinema pauvre as MacArthur put it… if you dont have something to say about Sccotland, you should go and make your film in England….
Coming back to the main point of the article, you have Culture devolved but the broadcasting of it is not, and this is about broadcasting in Scotland by the BBC – so again I ask, why are we not pointing the finger more at UK Gov for failing to enable the Culture of Scotland to be broadcast, by constantly utilising London based companies?
As much as we might really know the answer to the question, shouldn’t we at least be asking it of the right people? I’m far from averse to bitching at the SNP and its failings, but even if you had the best of the best running culture in Scotland, it still comes down to it all being stymied by broadcasting being a reserved matter. How well would anyone else do with this system?
The question is being asked of the wrong people. And the answer to the problem anway is, as we know, the full control that only independence would provide.
So until that day, how about we point the fingers at the people with the real power? Who at the BBC and UK Gov should this really be addressed to? Hayley Valentine at BBC Scotland and Lisa Nandy at UK Gov?
Yes this is fair. The responsibility for this debacle is with the UK govt. But I would expect the SG to also be raising this and questioning this.
I’m not sure if I would wait patiently for this Lisa Nandy [https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2020/01/19/divisive-nationalism/] to do much.
I doubt whether this is even a deliberate Machievellian ploy. I suspect its more just entrenched views and networks and the ever-present perspective that ‘anyone not from here is by default better’?
I reckon it would be a struggle to drag Angus Robertson away from the canapés and Ferrero Rocher for long enough to do anything about it.
I get the point, but why do British overseas territories not feature in any quotas I’ve seen? Still pretending the UK given up the Empire? Why don’t we get co-produced drama or weekly documentaries from these places produced by locals? We do get *some* documentaries or murder-mysteries featuring expats, but that’s like Scottish output being tours of distilleries and Taggart. What is going on?
…but , as we are often telt by our unionist masters , we have ” one of the most powerful devolved administrations in the World !”
Just imagine the state we’d be in if we weren’t ”one of the most powerful ……!”
Clearly something that needs to be publicised a lot more and I think that could, for once, actually have an effect as the BBC has been quite sensitive about accusations of them being London-centric. And of course this applies to many areas of the UK too. They have moved a fair bit of radio production from London in recent times but I suspect TV lags behind this though you don’t make clear if the stats quoted are just for TV productions (and bear in mind most of those these days are not in-house but done by commercial companies working for the BBC)?
I seriously cant believe there is a more upper class industry in the whole of this wretched isle as the UK film and tv industry….
The sense of entitlement, the upper class accents, the 100% whitenes of this ya toff English film set make you want to puke..
I worked for Spain’s biggest film production company for 5 years, and my boss would send me into meetings with these arseholes, and they would basically sit there and sneer at you for not being a fee paying school toff like them… they still run the show today…
And in Scotand, it’s the Glenalmond set who can find a way of working with them: Ewan MacGregor, Andrew MacDonald, Robbie Coltrane…
Film in the UK is absolutely class based…
@Douglas Wilson, well, yes, and I gather it is getting worse, if anything, although I haven’t read the full report here:
https://www.suttontrust.com/news-opinion/all-news-opinion/research-reveals-stark-class-inequalities-in-access-to-the-creative-industries/
I mean, social class inequality was the theme of this year’s Edinburgh TV festival or something, wasn’t it?
Well class inequality is exactly and precisely the plan in the United Shitdom, isnt it? That is the whole idea…
As for Jeckyll and Hyde, no one has ever shot the story as Stevenson tells it…
…it’s not a story about one man who becomes two, it’s a story about two men who turn out to be one…
I dont know about other scottish film folk, but I have a list of about 10 film projects, one of which I would write on spec, if I thought there was the slightest sliver of a chance of getting some funding…
But then I look at the people running the show and I just think, why bother? Why go through the humiliation of all those forms to be dissed by a bunch of overpaid execs who have never actually worked in a production company in their lives?
But anyway, no one seems too bothered by the situation. Wait for the Scottish Baftas, my guess is no one will kick up a fuss..
No pasa nada…
I’m glad that others are starting to get cross about this. We put of with the seven lean years of Steve Carson with nary a murmer. His strategy of remaining completely invisible in Scotland was truly inspired.
He’s away across the Irish Sea to work for RTE, perhaps he’ll be more visible with them ?
“London-based companies dominate BBC output in Scotland”
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From speaking to an individual whose offspring believes coverage to be fair and balanced as she works there, makes you wonder what on earth is going wrong (or right?!).
The clue as always is in the name and its charter!
@Iain MacLean, that is, a royal charter, determined by the Privy Council and an exercise of the royal prerogative, which contains some mealy-mouthed phrases and outright lies about the ‘managerial independence’ of the BBC (subject to Crown authority, which is supposed somehow to represent public interest, even if the public want to debate having a republic where their representatives *do* formally and constitutionally represent public interest, however ineffectually in some future practice). While Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher bogusly argued that public interest was identical to the interests of the government of the day; how even more ridiculous is the assertion that the Crown serves public interest (given the draconian British penchant for royal even above state secrecy).
BBC royal event commentator David Dimbleby went on record about how terrified BBC managers were about a call from Buckingham Palace (even more so than from the Israeli embassy, one gathers).
And of course the Privy Council itself has been the ultimate judge and censor for the British Empire for centuries. We have a little Parliamentary gloss recently added these days, of course, but there’s no public accountability for the royal-chartered BBC. What would a People’s Charter look like? I doubt Parliament will be much help.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2024-0093/
All part of the “state broadcasters” too wee too poor, failures too daft to ring out ain till, ” agenda.
I haven’t watched BBC for a good while but BBC Scotland used to introduce its evening news programme with the phrase ‘your national broadcaster’. I always found this amusing because the BBC in London never use such a phrase because it’s unnecessary, it’s stating the obvious. Asserting to your viewers that you are their national broadcaster is an admission that you’re not.
So true.
This is no surprise to anyone who has worked or is working in the industry in Scotland who has his/her eyes and ears open. Over twenty years of teaching students of journalism, TV and radio production I made consistent efforts to apprise my students of the situation that prevails in this regard. I have to say that, having spent the previous twenty years or so in television, we are surrounded by people who prioritise their own ambitions to reach the ‘pinnacle of the London job’ and devil take the hindmost. ( We are presented by examples of this on our screens every day. In fact some of them even sit in that anachronism The House of Lords as reward for their perfidy)They are completely uncaring about the creative industries in their own country or their colleagues; present or future. To paraphrase J.M. Barrie – …there is nothing more disgusting or repulsive than the sight of a Scotchman/woman on the make. As my old mother would have said, they should think black, burning shame of themselves. I certainly do. I despair utterly for my country and the industry.
It’s hardly news that the telly we get in Scotland is English telly. It’s also not surprising as Scotland is England’s colony and we get what England wants.
The thing about the SNP govt is that they are just incapable of tearing themselves away from the neo-liberal paradigm in almost every single issue..
…they cant seem to think out the box, with the sole exception of tuition fees…
If a rational observor were to look at our film & tv situation, a wee English speaking country in a world utterly dominated by the Americans, he or she would quickly come to the conclusion that we need to craft a film&tv policy which would further and develop our own distinct identity, concerns and culture on the screen, big or small…. otherwise, we disappear…which is the reality today…
But there is nothing like that at all. Scotland does not have a film&tv policy distinct from England.. it’s the same model, the G Osborne, D Cameron model… attract foreign shoots to Scotland, which pays for the crumbs on the table which go to local production, which is financed on a hit and miss basis with no clear idea of what a ‘model’ Scottish picture would look like….
In any case, anyone already well established will get some of Screen Scotland’s 8 milion budget… Stephen Frears, say, or Andrew MacDonald with Trainspotting II, even though it’s a studio film, or Netflix film like the 100 million D Mackenzie “Outlaw King” which Screen Scotland bunged a few million into just to get their logo on the credits…
We have very little money for film in Scotland, so you absolutely must have a clear and unashamedly pro Scottish strategy… it cant be to subsidize a Frears pucture or a 100 million dollar McKenzie picture either…
The fact that they put money into these big studio pictures of McKenzie, Frears or MacDonald, well that shows the Screen Scotland is beset by the corporate mentality….
These people are meant to be furthering the film industry in Scotland, they should be workmanlike and totally immune to vanity…
Frears, Andrew MacDonald, David MacKenzie are all in a different league to what we can do in film in Scotland… they should be told, “we dont back films over two or three million dollars, sorry…”
But the execs cant say no, the ego, the vanity, they lose all dignity when someone with a name in film knocks on the door…pathetic…
christ, dae we really need oany scottish sh*te oan the telly at a’ even the national squad is ful’ ae foreign accents, like ivry ithir place scotland’s a fkn disgrace, deal wie it
Not surprised. It’s the BBC, after all.