Television in Scotland
The experience of commercial expansion of television services in Scotland since has been broadly similar to that in the UK generally.
These early transmissions offered no significant separate content; all BBC programming came direct from London with only very occasional Scottish variation made using an outside broadcast unit.
Border Television, with its headquarters in Carlisle, transmitting across the south of Scotland and north of England, followed suit on 1 September 1961.
Much of the output of BBC Scotland Television, such as news and current affairs programmes, and the Glasgow-based soap opera, River City, are intended for broadcast within Scotland, whilst others, such as drama and comedy programmes, aim at audiences throughout the UK and further afield.
In May 2006, both channels were re-branded "STV" with newsrooms in Glasgow and Aberdeen retained to provide separate news services for their respective regions.
Most of the independent television output equates to that transmitted in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with the exception of news and current affairs, sport, cultural and Scottish Gaelic language programming.
His six-month study into the BBC showed 34% of all news focused on England while just 2% was dedicated to Scotland, despite having 10% of the population.
[6] In May 2006 Mark Thompson, the Director-General of the BBC, ruled out any prospect of a Scottish Six news bulletin to replace that produced in London.
[8] The pan-regional programme would have replaced the two separate programmes for northern and central Scotland, however the plans were later dropped in favour of a retained North news service and the launch of two separate news services for the West and East of Central Scotland.
In February 2017, the BBC announced plans for a bespoke part-time television channel to serve Scotland, replacing the existing regional feed of BBC Two; as part of these plans, it was announced that the proposed service would feature an hour-long news and public affairs programme broadcast and produced out of Scotland, echoing the Scottish Six proposals.
