STV's plan to increase news coverage in wake of BBC cuts announcement (His Nibs blog)
His Nibs is The Drum's new blog that give you the stories behind Scottish journalism. Here he reveals that STV is planning to expand its news resource - just as the BBC hatches plan to cut their's back.
Was it a coincidence that on the day BBC Scotland announced massive jobs losses, it emerges that STV are going to increase and improve their Scottish news coverage?
It wasn’t that long ago that BBC Scotland (motto: Delivering Quality First) wanted an expansion of local news coverage, with a greater web presence, but after objections from certain quarters in the print media the Government backed down and plans were shelved.
Times are harder now and 140 jobs at the Beeb are to go. That’s the 120 announced on Friday plus another 20 outstanding. It’s an average of 16 per cent of the workforce, with some departments in Radio Scotland losing around 40 per cent.
The good news is STV are doing their best to take up the slack. Thanks to new technology they’re able to provide individual TV news programmes at 6pm each weekday evening for Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. In addition, there will be more jobs in their Dundee studio. Overall I expect around 20 new journalist positions to be filled.
And there could be more if bosses win their bid to provide a news programme for the area once served by Border TV.
Meanwhile, it looks like the press may have finally woken up to the sleeping giant that could be the Christine Grahame story. I gather that one paper is showing a great deal of interest and is in the process of examining a long list of allegations made against her by her former right-hand man Mark Hirst.
It’s early days but it is worth emphasising that the MSP has not done anything wrong, despite Mark’s complaints against her.
He is, after all, a disgruntled former employee with an axe to grind. It is also worth mentioning that he worked closely with her for nearly seven years and is intimately familiar with the workings of her office.