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BBC’s commitment to Scotland |
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Tuesday, 25 March 2008 |
The BBC is set to unveil a shake-up of network output next month in a bid to achieve a more equitable spread of productions around the UK.
Caroline Thomson, the BBC’s chief operating officer, said: “What we’re
engaged in here is something which is about creating a sustainable
production base and a real shift in power as well.”
Thomson told a hearing of the Scottish Broadcasting Commission: “What
I’m not about is a ‘finding a bit of money and chucking it up north to
keep you all quiet’ strategy. This is about reconfiguring BBC
productions so that we have sustainable bases around the United
Kingdom, with Scotland as one of the absolute key planks in it.”
The BBC’s director general, Mark Thompson, said: “I remain committed to
the statement I made at Pacific Quay about our future commitment to
network production from Scotland [reaching a minimum of 9 per cent],
and that should be underpinned by a credible and independently
measurable set of definitions. And I think that means that in all
scenarios, there will be a measurable and very significant increase in
network productions from Scotland.
“We want to try and not just help create, but also help sustain a
significant critical mass of production, talent and resources and
facilities in Scotland. And so there’s something that we need to work
on in terms of smoothing commissioning and demand so that you don’t get
dramatic variations between years. Because, to say the obvious, it’s
quite hard, for example, for individual writers or directors to build a
career if [they are] physically based in Scotland if there are enormous
changes year upon year.
Thompson acknowledged there was a political dimension to the issue but
added: “Actually, the main reasons are we want to serve licence payers
in this country better and we want to have better access and to make
better use of the very considerable resources of talent which exist in
this country. And we hope that by doing that we can produce services
which work better for the public in Scotland, but also potentially in
terms of the Scottish creative industries.
“Obviously broadcasting production first and foremost, but more
broadly, [we] can potentially let people build careers and build
businesses which work on a UK stage, but also hopefully work on a
worldwide stage as well.”
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 25 March 2008 )
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