Need for political will to safeguard TV in Scotland

home have shown no evidence of wanting it either. Only the Government is

keen on the idea although it continues to insist that the paramount

consideration must be the interest of the consumer.

In the case of television that is humbug. Selling off television will

pull in millions for the Government and will only help to swell Mr

Lawson's hoard of our money.

If ever there was an example of an industry being technologically

driven it is television. The armaments industry was a bit like that for

a while.

Because the knowledge and means existed to make certain types of

missile -- Cruise, for example -- technocrats convinced politicians that

these devices were indispensible to the defence of the realm. (What they

must think after this week's television pictures of Trident repeatedly

tumbling its wilkies? The Soviets must figure they are safe as long as

we buy it.)

Medicine has had the same experience. A huge industry exists now in

which drugs and equipment are packaged and designed to do specific jobs

which are not really needed. There are hospitals in the private sector

of world medicine which drag people in off the street to have them

examined just to bring in the means of paying for machinery, often while

those who truly need technology are deprived of it because they can't

afford the price.

But television must be the only industry threatened with terminal

fragmentation by the impetus of its own technological advance. In the

coming few years it will bepossible to have a television set in your

home which offers anything from 20 to perhaps 80 or so channels.

I have seen the system. This time last year I was in a friend's house

in Atlanta, Georgia, in which a television set the size of a sideboard

offered dozens of channels.

It was a Sunday morning and the channels were competing for the most

watchable Southern evangelist service. (That was during the troubles of

Mr Jimmy Swaggart. If you were impressed by Mr Swaggart's famous

lachrymose confession you should have seen the performance of his son,

appearing as a character witness.) All of the channels were memorably

awful.

We are now in for the same type of technological change and I can see

no reason why the effect on standards will be any different in Britain.

We now have two BBC channels and two independent channels. Two more are

on the cards: Channel 5 which will go to independent programme makers

and a sixth sometime after that.

Satellite broadcasting has just begun with Rupert Murdoch's Sky

company which beams down five channels, and at the end of the year the

British Satellite, BSB, in which Robert Maxwell has a hand, will be

doing much the same. In addition cable television will pass on some of

these satellite programmes as well as many others which the cable

companies themselves put on offer.

To complicate matters all of the ITV companies are being auctioned to

the highest bidder under the terms of the Government's White Paper on

broadcasting. There are fears expressed in many quarters that some of

the smaller companies will not survive competition in a market where

cold cash decides for or against survival.

For example, what will happen to Grampian Television? It has eight

transmitters and 68 relays for a viewing area in the north of Scotland

equivalent to the size of Switzerland. On the other hand Thames TV and

London Weekend share one transmitter and two small boosters.

The cost of transmitters is at present subsidised and split among all

the ITV companies but after the auction it will become the

responsibility of individual companies. Grampian will, therefore, be put

at a huge disadvantage perhaps to the point where it simply cannot

compete and must go out of business.

The biggest area of concern in Scotland is Scottish Television. If the

Government had bothered to ask the people of Scotland what they wanted

from their bigger (we only have two) commercial television company, it

might have been told of the need for protecting the progress of recent

years.

In its three decades of existence Scottish TV has seldom found itself

basking in critical acclaim. There were good reasons why many people

looked down their noses at it.

STV was disfigured at birth by Lord Thomson's careless ''licence to

print money'' remark which is still cast up today to the exasperation of

its management, and for years Cowcaddens was regarded as a repose for

unadventurous time-servers although, as always, there were honourable

exceptions.

On recent times there have been improvements and advances, most

notably in the quality of drama and news and current affairs and sport.

It would be a shame if this progress, however belated, was blown away by

Government-inspired economic dogma which, as ever, pays scant attention

to the distinctive needs and style of areas outside south-east England.

For years the big five English companies -- Thames, Central, London

Weekend, Granada, and Yorkshire -- steamrollered over the interests of

other constituent parts of independent television. They were allowed to

use their big audiences and financial clout from advertising to shape

network style and content.

Stations like STV and Grampian had to play along and like it. Border

TV, despite having a small Scottish audience, is an English company but

the same rule applies in Carlisle as in Caithness.

In the past few years Scottish TV has challenged this domination. In

independent television power is held in proportion to share of

advertising revenue. Scotland has been marginalised by the fact that it

has less than 10% of the British audience and only 7.5% of the share of

the network advertising revenue (NAR). Despite having their grip

loosened in recent times the big five still control 80% of national

output.

ITV spends #380m on its programmes (excluding ITN and imports) and

Scotland's share should be about #28m for network programmes. In fact

Scotland outperforms all the other regional companies and will sell #12m

worth next year which is four times the figure three years ago. But it

is still only half of what it should be under the NAR formula.

Taggart, Winners and Losers, Take the High Road, Wheel of Fortune and

other networked programmes have helped to give STV more impact

throughout the country but much remains still to be done to gain the

other half of Scotland's share.

Hundreds of jobs depend on it. Half of STV's workforce is now employed

for network programmes but a fairer share of network programming could

double their numbers from the present 400.

Much of this progress has been made by Gus MacDonald, director of

programmes at STV since 1985, who has also ensured a presence for STV on

important committees in the ITV bureacracy. Yet when Scottish is finally

beginning to make the impact it should have made many years ago it seems

under greater threat than ever.

Not all of its effort is altruistic. Programmes like Wheel of Fortune

are money-spinners but do little to elevate quality. We need to make

sure that commercial interests are not the only means of making

television in Scotland survive.

There will be plenty of junk on offer by way of competition. Scottish

has shown that it can also produce watchable television of quality but

it would need courage to stand against the coming tide. Political

support is required.

Border TV is quite another problem for Scotland. The Carlisle

station's audience profile is typical of a committee design. From

inception in the early 1960s it has condemned its audience to cultural

schizophrenia.

It must cater for the interests of people in places as different as

Berwick and the Isle of Man, Stranraer and Kendal, Cockermouth and

Kirkconnel. News reporters, for example, must find stories from Aspatria

to interest viewers in Newton Stewart. For years BTV has struggled

heroically but the complaints remain constant.

The technology to sort this out has been in existence for years but

no-one in authority shows much interest. BBC viewers can choose between

programming from Glasgow or Manchester but ITV viewers must tune into

England (unless they live in parts of Galloway where they can opt out to

Ulster TV).

The time has come when a fresh look has to be taken not just at the

commercial potential of the technological revolution in television but

at its effect in Scotland.

Our television viewers could be saved from the worst of deregulation

and the coming scramble for independent franchises if some hard

political will could be found to protect our interests. Border viewers

in Scotland should be given Scottish programmes. Perhaps an all-Scotland

channel should be set up with strong opt-out rights devolved to Aberdeen

if Grampian is unable to stand alone.

The same could apply in Dumfries or Berwick. Our interest in what will

in future be effectively the ITV network by another name should remain

strong but independent.

It has always irritated me that the BBC is answerable to a Government

Ministry in England (the Home Office in Whitehall, which is also

responsible for the police, a curious coupling) and is as strongly

centralised as ever. Control over independent television is about to

collapse completely into a stampede for commercial survival.

The British have always boasted of having the least bad television in

the world; it would be good to see Scotland with the least bad

television in Britain. What we need is a Scottish television authority

to protect us from the worst of the coming free-for-all but I doubt we

shall see it soon enough.