Gordon Brown warns telly addicts face bleak future in independent Scotland
Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has weighed into the independence debate with a bleak prognosis for the future of television, jobs, pensions and healthcare should the yes vote prevail.
Brown believes that in such a scenario people will lose access to the likes of EastEnders, Strictly Come Dancing or Match of the Day unless they paid vastly higher fees.
This was calculated on the basis that such shows cost around £4bn to produce each year whilst Scots contribute little more than £300m in license fee payments to this bill.
Doing the sums Brown estimates that the BBC’s six most popular shows cost in excess of £160m to produce, a sum equivalent to half the estimated budget of an independent Scottish Broadcasting Corporation.
Brown said: “The truth is that the BBC is one of many areas – from pensions and healthcare to jobs and defence – where we benefit from the wider pool of funds that allows us to do more and to offer greater benefits than a smaller population base gives us."