My most thrilling pre-millennial guilty pleasure was watching Dale Winton’s Supermarket Sweep on a day off. Being a young newspaper executive, I suppose I really ought to have been spending my time doing something more gainful such as catching up on the Sunday papers; perhaps attempting to tackle the Economist’s analysis of Bill Clinton’s US recovery programme for the purposes of borrowing from it in a future editorial. But something about big Dale as the camp supermarket ringmaster sending couples scurrying round the aisles to fill their trolleys with a quantum of comestibles was mesmerising. If I was being a supercilious arse I might have penned a stern étude, concluding that Dale’s Supermarket Sweep was a troubling metaphor for the grab-all-you-want attitudes prevalent in Tory Britain. But it was just a very good and very gentle game show in the hands of a kindly host with a twinkle in his eye.
I even fantasised about suggesting a darker, Scottish version for BBC Scotland or STV. Dozens of bottles of vodka would be planked around the store in unmarked bottles. Any contestant who unwittingly annexed any of these would be expected to neck it there and then before attempting a full supermarket sweep while howling with it. It would have been glorious chaos. Frankie Boyle could have hosted it late at night, spitting profanities at all the hapless participants.
Since it was announced last year that BBC Scotland was to get a big, new digital television channel, complete with its own hour-long news programme (the long foretold holy of holies), I’ve resisted dusting down my Tartan Noir Supermarket Sweep and sending it in for consideration. According to Pacific Quay producers, others have not been so reticent. “Pitches for new programmes have been flooding in,” I was told.
The future direction and nature of BBC Scotland had become one of the most significant ancillary issues emerging from the country’s constitutional debate in the decade since the SNP came to power. Much less of the BBC’s licence fee cash collected in Scotland was spent on Scottish programming than in any of the other UK regions. The new and febrile political landscape in the country seemed to call for more than a half-hour add-on after the adult network news production from London. The lamentable lack of original Scottish-made drama on the BBC seemed a betrayal of the nation’s creative talent and industries. Ironically, the best Scottish-made drama on BBC Scotland is Shetland, which is made by ITV Studios.
The new digital channel with an annual budget of £30m temporarily stemmed the discontent. This seemed like serious money being deployed to plug some serious gaps. BBC Scotland producers, fatigued by years of battling with executives too eager to bend the knee to London and protect their personal pensions, were happy to accept the numbers, even though they felt it unlikely there would be enough left over for anything original after the nightly news programme had spent its budget. As one producer put it: “Archie Gemmill’s goal from the 1978 World Cup will be working overtime.”
The numbers for BBC Scotland’s digital channel, which is still optimistically scheduled for later this year, were discussed at Holyrood last week, where MSPs are holding an inquiry into the country’s film and television industries. It’s the first time they’ve been exposed to serious scrutiny and they are not holding up well. Submissions by some of Scotland’s biggest independent production companies are publicly stating what BBC producers privately fear: the annual budget set aside for the new channel is woefully inadequate. Caledonia TV said: “We are not convinced the £30m per annum content budget is sufficient to produce the required number of hours of original, high-quality primetime content the BBC proposal suggests and the audience will expect from Scotland’s new national broadcaster.”
Producers are sanguine about this “because something is better than fuck all”, as it was vividly expressed to me last week. This, though, is a lot less than the vision painted by breathless BBC bosses last year. A new Xanadu for Scotland’s independent programmers would soon be upon us. Blessed be the BBC.
BBC Scotland’s cavernous Glasgow headquarters already resemble an underused aircraft hangar at times. Its reception area rings to a timpani of travel trolleys belonging to London executives passing judgment on another piece of programming dressed up to look Scottish but devised and created in England. This won’t change much.
There is some prodigious talent among the BBC’s 250-odd staff journalists in Scotland but too often they are let down by a stunning lack of imagination and creativity by departmental bosses, especially in news and current affairs. The broadcaster also spends an inordinate amount securing the radio rights to Scottish football and (very) limited TV highlights. Its coverage of the national game, though, is an embarrassment. It has allowed itself to become the favourite destination of a host of semi-literate and not very illustrious former players eager to top up their pensions. Yet this publicly funded station is permitted to use its economic muscle to outbid the independents.
The bosses at the BBC have never provided an adequate reason why only 72% of television licence revenue raised in Scotland is spent in Scotland as opposed to 98% in Northern Ireland and 110% in Wales. But while we are waiting for that funding gap to be reduced, BBC Scotland could raise a few million more by taking it away from its sports department. One good, original drama or documentary made in Scotland is worth a year of the squawking and screeching that passes for its football coverage.
• Kevin McKenna is an Observer columnist
