A Scottish National Broadcaster to replace the BBC
Can Scotland do better than the BBC?
This is one of a series of posts looking at what Scotland might be like after independence.
The BBC
Britain’s state-run broadcaster, the BBC, gets a significant amount of criticism. People on the left claim its political coverage is too right-wing. Supporters of Scottish independence claim coverage is biased against them, claiming the BBC is keen to emphasize stories that portray the SNP in a bad light. Here, for example they highlight what they call the “row” between Scottish First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, and her predecessor Alex Salmond:
People on the right claim the BBC’s coverage is too woke and culturally left wing. For example, when I go onto the iPlayer, their featured programme is usually RuPaul’s Drag Race, which is apparently “sickening” and “fabulous” (I’ve never watched it):
All these claims have some justification:
The BBC’s board is appointed by the Conservative government, so they will naturally tend to appoint people friendly to their cause.
The BBC is Britain’s national broadcaster, and doesn’t want the British state to be split up.
A lot of the BBC’s staff are on the left, particularly culturally, and this is bound to come out in the programmes they produce.
A Scottish National Broadcaster
Can we do better after independence? I think we can. Enter the Scottish National Broadcaster. Here’s an idea for its logo:
OK, I’m not a graphic designer, and I probably shouldn’t give up the day job.
Governance of the SNB
No-one is completely unbiased and I’m not even sure what a completely unbiased news source would look like. If a publisher is a private company it will be biased towards its (mostly) rich) owners, and if a publisher is controlled by the state it will do what the government of the day tells it to.
The best we can hope for is if the Scottish National Broadcaster’s biases reflect those of the Scottish people. This can be achieved by having the SNB’s board directly elected by the Scottish people. I am not an expert on television, nor are most people, but I am the world’s leading expert on the content I like (as are you, dear reader!). So the aggregate of everyone’s individual preferences would come close to what Scotland as a people wants.
The BBC board has 12 members. Since Scotland is a smaller country than the UK, the SNB’s board should be smaller at 11 members, and they should be elected by a STV election, as this is the most democratic way of doing it. Having an odd number of people on the board ensures that votes on it won’t be tied 6-6.
Content and Channels
In terms of content, the SNB will be similar to the BBC: it will have news, sport, drama, comedy, music, etc. The exact details will be determined by its board, who will be elected by the Scottish people (and therefore will reflect their priorities).
In terms of channels there will of course be TV and radio channels.
More importantly, there will be a website, or perhaps a series of websites. Since TV and radio will increasingly be services running on the internet, this has the biggest growth potential.
As well as producing TV and radio programmes, and written material on the webiste, the SNB may branch out into other forms of content, such as video games. Imagine something like the Grand Theft Auto series, but set in an accurate map of Glasgow or Edinburgh and with lots of in jokes. All this would be at the discretion of the SNB’s board.
Funding the SNB
The BBC is funded by a TV license, currently £157.50 per year per household. Flat-rate taxes are regressive, and so I propose the SNB be funded from general taxation. If the SNB was funded at the same rate per capita as the BBC, this would amount to about £350 million a year.
As well as taxpayer funding, the SNB would be able to sell some premium products (such as video games). But the majority of its content — including sporting events of national importance — would be free to the Scottish public.
The Back Catalog
The back catalog of all TV and radio broadcasts the SNB has ever made will be available over the internet, fully indexed on the website. The actual downloading of these programmes will use protocols such as BitTorrent and IPFS, in order to reduce the bandwidth the SNB’s website would need to use.
All the back catalog will be available without DRM.
The back catalog will be useful to Scots. it will also hopefully be widely consumed by people in other countries, particularly English-speaking ones. This will help the Scottish state put its message out to the world.
The question also arises of what happens to the BBC’s existing back catalog after independence. If Scotland chooses to rule itself, there will be negotiations between the Scottish government and the UK government on the details of independence. I hope the Scottish government’s negotiating position will be that Scotland retains a copyright in the BBC’s back catalog (as well as the BBC keeping its copyright). It’s impossible to say how the details of the negotiations will play out, but if this is the case, then the SNB will be able to put the BBC’s back catalog — which Scottish TV license payers have paid for, just like TV license payers in the rest of the UK — on its website.
Foreign Language Output
Independent Scotland will probably be a member of the EU, and will thus be particularly interested in what goes on in those countries. We will want to influence opinion in EU countries, as well as in the wider world. Thus the SNB will want to produce content in foreign languages, particularly those spoken in the EU.
It’s possible that some of this foreign language content might be produced in collaboration with Scotland’s foreign ministry. Other content will be translated from English-language originals that SNB is producing anyway; if one is making a TV programme, adding subtitles or dubbing is not much of an extra cost.