Nothing on TV, or nothing we want?

REMEMBER when the phrase ‘there’s nothing on the telly’ really meant something? When there were only three channels to watch, each accessed by a button the size of an iPhone on the side of the television and the best you could hope for was a repeat of Hancock’s Half Hour you’d only seen five times?

i was struck by this the other day when i settled down on a long train journey with my iPad, flicked over to my netflix account and started watching an episode of sumptuous Royal drama the Crown.

i can’t remember the last time i watched a repeat of anything, given the amount of choice there is nowadays, from Youtube cat videos (we’ve all been there), streaming services such as netflix and Amazon Prime, DVD box sets, not to mention the hundreds of TV channels.

What we watch, and how we watch it, has evolved so much that the days of ‘council telly’ seem more like a century ago than a few decades.

All this should be good news for the people who make television. Yes, there’s more competition, but there are also more platforms, more viewers and more flexibility. We are, we keep being told, in a golden age of television drama, a viewers’ paradise where choice is paramount.

So it is somewhat disappointing to hear that the BBC’s new flagship Scottish digital channel, due to launch next year, is to fill half of its schedule with repeats.

the £32million-a-year channel, launched with much fanfare earlier this year and due to air from next autumn, was initially slated for a 60/40 split between original content and reruns, but a lack of cash in the budget means the new programming is to be significantly watered down.

it also emerged this week that the new channel could attract as little as 0.4 per cent of the TV audience in Scotland which, by my technical calculations on the back of a matchbox, works out at my Mum and my cat. And even they’re fed up with repeats.

the thing is, a flagship new channel for Scotland should be a good thing. it will provide a host of jobs and opportunities for fresh, homegrown televisual talent that might otherwise hop on the first Virgin train to london. But when viewers are continuously tuning in to be confronted with yet another Still Game repeat (i love Still Game, but if you’re really interested, you’ve probably got the DVD and if not, it’s on netflix anyway), the chances are you won’t go back.

there are other snags. Apparently, during the noon to 7pm period, most of the channel’s programming will be the same as BBC2, which raises the inevitable question: why not just watch BBC2?

Meanwhile, ‘continuing drama’ will make up just 2.7 per cent of the schedule, while ‘comedy and drama’ will be only 1.4 per cent. it doesn’t exactly sound like they’re gearing up to make the new Breaking Bad, does it?

THERE will be sports coverage, but it is likely to be dominated by shinty, bowls and hurling. nothing wrong with that, of course, but it’s not going to bring in hordes of viewers.

news and current affairs gets a healthy 19 per cent of the content aired between 7pm and midnight, although that brings with it the old and thorny question over whether Scots will tune in to a Scottish world affairs programme when they can so easily access the BBC news and Sky news channels. it’s an issue made even more pertinent by the revelation this week that the flagship ‘Scottish Seven’ StV news tonight is regularly broadcasting to no viewers.

Will a Scottish BBC channel work in this world of endless televisual choice? i’m not sure. no one wants to see this project bomb, with jobs lost and cash wasted. the question though, particularly when public money is involved, is whether it should ever have been launched in the first place.