The great Scottish bake-off
BBC channel in bid to cook up copycat hits
‘All the issues of the day’
BOSSES of the BBC’s new Scottish TV channel want to find ‘the next Great British Bake Off’ to attract viewers.
They also unveiled plans yesterday for a Scottish version of Question Time in the form of a panel-based political debate show with audience participation.
The £32million-a-year channel will launch in February with a ‘news hour’ called The Nine, but the BBC has been criticised for filling the schedule with reality television, dumbed-down programming and repeats dating back to the 1970s.
Yesterday, Steve Carson, head of multi-platform commissioning at BBC Scotland, said he hoped income could be generated by developing new ‘formats’ to duplicate the success of The Great British Bake Off – fronted by Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood – and MasterChef.
He told Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee (SAC): ‘A big part of what we’re doing on the channel is looking at programming, whether it’s scripted [for example] comedy or drama that could have a life elsewhere, but first and foremost for audiences in Scotland.
‘But we’re also looking at formats – whether it’s the next Bake Off, the next MasterChef – those can be very valuable intellectual properties and if we can get a Scottish supplier, the channel’s a space to try things out.’
Mr Carson told MPs the BBC would be ‘very hopeful it could bring money into the creative sector’ by working with production firms to sell a ‘format’ such as MasterChef to global markets.
The SAC also heard plans are ‘on track’ to launch the channel on February 24 next year, with the nightly hour-long news show and programmes such as Still Game to feature on the channel before airing on BBC one.
BBC Scotland head of news Gary Smith said a political debate show was also being commissioned.
He told the SAC: ‘It’s fantastic to have the opportunity to do this now. It’ll be a really significant addition to what we can offer on TV as a proper, in-depth political debate programme.
‘We haven’t quite worked out the format yet but there will clearly be some kind of panel and some kind of audience and a presenter, and we’ll be able to look at all the issues of the day from a Scottish perspective. It’s kind of like our own BBC Scotland version of the Question Time format.’
Mr Smith said he hoped the longer news programme at 9pm would allow the BBC to explore stories in greater depth in the style of Newsnight, adding: ‘We have the air time to get some really good journalism on-air.’ BBC Scotland director Donalda MacKinnon said that the new channel ‘will have a number of roles, culturally, politically and economically’.
She added: ‘Critically, the most important role we will have will be to serve audiences better.’
But she warned that the outcome of a consultation on how licence fees for over-75s are paid could affect the channel.
The licences are financed by a Government-funded scheme, which is due to end in 2020, and the BBC is consulting on how to fund them in future. Options include axing the free licences.
The SAC chairman, Nationalist MP Pete Wishart, asked if there were any plans to deal with a ‘potential hit’ to allocated funds as a result of the cost of paying for the licences for older viewers.
Mrs MacKinnon said: ‘The BBC will have to look across all its services and ours would potentially be part of that landscape.’ She warned that a proposal for the BBC to pay for licences for over75s could lead to wider cuts across the corporation’s programming.
Mrs MacKinnon said: ‘The amount of money we’re talking about here poses some serious challenges for the BBC – in the region of £745million, roughly a fifth of the BBC’s budget.
‘[That is] equivalent to all that is spent today on all of BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, the BBC news channel, CBBC and CBeebies. That is not to say any of these services would be directly affected, but that is the nature of the challenge.
‘There is no doubt there will be an impact for those services.’