Here is the news...only 100 people are actually watching
STV’s flagship Scottish show is failing to attract viewers
IT was billed as a landmark addition to Scottish screens – the first homeproduced bulletin to deliver national, UK-wide and international news.
But, two months after STV launched its own ‘Scottish Six’, albeit at seven o’clock, viewing figures for the halfhour show have proved less than encouraging.
On one night they were so poor that the official ratings computer registered viewer numbers as zero. On another occasion it estimated that only 100 people were watching and, three nights later, merely 200.
In the weeks since the bulletin, which is presented by Halla Mohieddeen, has been on air, the highest official audience figure it has enjoyed is 16,500 on May 10. That represents 1.15 per cent of audience share.
But the average viewing figure has been only around 4,900 a night, which is just over 0.3 per cent of audience share.
Revelations of the disappointing figures will provide food for thought at BBC Scotland which, for decades has faced calls to launch an hour-long news programme which opts out of the 6pm network broadcast.
In February, the Corporation announced the launch of a new £30million-a-year channel for Scotland, but it ruled out replacing the UK-wide BBC News at Six and Reporting Scotland with an hour-long Scottish Six.
By then, STV had already announced its new STV News Tonight on the STV2 channel, which launched this year.
Speaking last September, STV’s head of news Gordon Macmillan said: ‘This is a programme whose merits have been long debated in Scotland.
‘I’m delighted that STV will bring this landmark new programme to Scotland’s screens.
‘Viewers can look forward to yet another TV first: the best of Scottish, UK and international news in a single programme and presented in a way that solely meets the needs of a Scottish audience.’
Nationalist MP Pete Wishart, a long-time supporter of calls for a ‘Scottish Six’, welcomed the announcement eagerly. He said: ‘With all the introverted agonising at the BBC, here’s STV getting on with giving Scotland the news it needs.’
For the launch show in April, a Scottish journalist was sent to France to report on the presi- dential elections. The show also relies on international reports filed by ITN staff for the network news broadcast.
But, despite great fanfare when the programme launched, and general approval of its format and slick presentation, the bulletin attracts a fraction of its rivals’ audience share.
The network BBC News at Six is watched by 25 per cent of Scots who have their televisions on at the time.
Reporting Scotland enjoys a 32 per cent audience share, while the STV News at Six, which features Scottish news, has a 26 per cent share.
A spokesman for Overnights. TV, which provided the figures, said exact viewer numbers were hard to discern with great accuracy for lesser watched broadcasts, as they are based on small samples which are weighted.
But he said it seemed clear the show had a very small percentage of the audience share, was watched by slightly more women than men and predominantly by older age groups.
They added: ‘It may be that the timing is working against it. In that slot it’s up against things like Emmerdale. And people are comfortable with the six to seven slot being for news.’
An STV spokesman said: ‘We’re pleased with the performance of STV News Tonight. In the first ten weeks since the programme was launched, it’s reached over 200,000 people, with a nightly audience in line with Sky News in that slot.’
‘Pleased with the performance’