BBC Scotland has been accused by an influential culture watchdog of dumbing down, with too much football, listener phone-ins and poor presenters high on the list of complaints about its £180m a year output.
In an unprecedented move which is certain to embarrass corporation bosses, members of the Saltire Society are to debate the state of the national broadcaster this week.
Its concerns are so severe and far-reaching that a summit with BBC Scotland b
osses and public meetings throughout the country are being considered. And it is feared the situation will only get worse with further job and budget cuts planned in the next three years.
Members of the Saltire Society, which was established in the 1930s to safeguard Scotland's arts, literature, music, history and environment, believe broadcasting chiefs are failing licence fee payers, with inadequate television and radio programmes.
BBC Scotland defended its output last night, but broadcasters and leading cultural commentators disagreed, with the national radio station, Radio Scotland, accused of "losing its soul".
At a private meeting of the Saltire Society this Thursday, Paul Scott, the group's vice-chairman, will argue that the entire television and radio schedule needs an overhaul.
He said: "There are serious questions to be asked about some of BBC Scotland's output. Reporting Scotland often concentrates on trivial items and seems parochial and not very original. It is also absurd that Reporting Scotland follows a programme based in England and almost totally devoted to English news.
"We need a programme that allows Scots to see the world through Scottish eyes."
Radio Scotland is also failing to inspire, claims Scott. "It used to be a much better station," he said. "There is more and more football and less of everything else. Good Morning Scotland also seems to have gone down-market."
Only Newsnight Scotland is pulling its weight - and then at the wrong time - according to Scott. He added: "It's the best thing we have. A proper, intelligent programme asking intelligent questions about serious issues. But it is on very late and not for very long."
Ken Munro, Scotland's former representative to the European Commission and chairman of the Saltire Society's international committee, added to the criticism. He said: "Clear communication on a popular level is one thing. Populism is an entirely different matter and too often Radio Scotland moves from good communication to populism."
Last night, BBC insiders admitted there was widespread concern about the quality of programmes. The corporation has already been forced to cut 195 jobs north of the Border - about 42 of which were in news and current affairs - as part of a 15% reduction in posts across the country. However, the news and current affairs budget, thought to be around £20m, faces a further 10% cut in the next three years.
A former BBC Scotland presenter claimed its television documentary unit, Frontline, was letting standards slip.
The source said: "It is supposed to be a serious, investigative programme but their feature on Hairmyres Hospital last week consisted of two staged interviews with an NHS official and an Edinburgh University academic. The rest of it was just general footage. It was not the documentary they claimed it to be."
Jeff Zycinski, Radio Scotland's controller, was also criticised.
One BBC producer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "He's trying to popularise the station to the point that it's losing its soul. Why has he this obsession with football? Doesn't he realise that the BBC traditionally prides itself on specialised programming? Aren't we supposed to be offering the taxpayer something different that contributes to the cultural progress of Scottish society? This man has no vision or sense of national responsibility. Questions must be asked."
Professor Tom Devine, an authority on the history of modern Scotland and author of the best-selling book The Scottish Nation, backed the Saltire Society's concerns.
Devine, holder of the Sir William Fraser Chair of Scottish History at the University of Edinburgh, said: "My main concern is Radio Scotland. There is a lack of authority and gravitas among several presenters on news programmes, a weakness compounded by a tendency to unrelenting jauntiness and couthy humour, obsession with a phone-in culture based on the pseudo-democratic but essentially post-modernist idea that everybody's opinion is worth listening to no matter how crazed."
However, David Hutchison, a research fellow in media policy at Glasgow Caledonian University, argued that BBC Scotland had an extremely difficult job to do, particularly after losing the battle over a 'Scottish Six' - the proposal that Scotland opted out of the networked 6pm news to deliver its own programme.
Hutchison said: "Drama is also very expensive and they seem to have put a lot of money into their soap opera [River City] and that has limited dramatic output. It's also easy to criticise Radio Scotland, but it has a limited budget compared with Radio 4 yet has to produce a complete service in a crowded marketplace. Jeff Zycinski is never going to satisfy everyone and you could argue that the obsession with football predates him."
A BBC Scotland spokesman denied allegations that its content had been dumbed down.
He said: "We have to provide a very broad range of programmes and services for a hugely diverse audience.
"Recent output reflecting Scotland's heritage includes Enlightenment, King of Scots, Scotland's History and Mod 2006, while forthcoming programmes will focus on the tri-centenary of the Union.
"It is not true to say there is more and more football at the expense of our other output as our weeknight Sportsound programmes are on medium wave only, leaving non-football fans to tune in to our arts and specialised music output on FM.
"Reaching as wide an audience as possible is an important aspiration and the most recent audience research figures saw an increase to 939,000 listeners to Radio Scotland, while the number of hours listeners tuned in each week also increased."
For: Rare talents producing gems
WHEN devolution happened, BBC Scotland had an injection of cash to increase political coverage.
Since then, the emphasis has changed. Increased cash coming in to Scotland has begun to fund new and different programmes in the non-news schedule. There is now much more to Scottish radio and TV than the ritual, tired exchanges between journalists and politicians.
From mid-morning till midnight there are some gems on Radio Scotland. Billy Kay's scholarly research has introduced me to parts of Scottish history and culture I'd never dreamt existed. Iain Anderson offers a delightfully unpredictable mix of music old and new. Edi Stark has the courage to ask questions which get under the skin of her subjects. And John Cavanagh's Songlines is a masterpiece.
On television, BBC Scotland has commissioned against the grain.
It has defied the network obsession with increasingly absurd reality formats and won significant audiences for traditional observational documentaries which respect the intelligence of the viewer and challenge political cliché with stories of the real issues of Scotland's people. And surely the huge audiences that come regularly to the self-deprecating humour of Still Game or Tam Cowan are as good an expression of cultural self-confidence as you could ask for.
David Strachan is joint managing director of Tern TV, an independent production company based in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Belfast
DAVID STRACHANAgainst: A cacophony of chatter
TUNE in to BBC Scotland and you will find it impossible to get any sense of who we are. It is a service lacking in identity, awkward and insecure in tone and utterly devoid of authority.
I have three radios in close proximity as I prepare for the day. I am awakened by Good Morning Scotland, which presents a cacophony of chatter as it veers between presentational styles, neither succeeding as a tabloid of the airwaves nor as a serious informative programme. Consequently, having caught the essential Scottish headlines, I spend the next hour wandering between the bathroom and the kitchen listening to Radio 4 and balancing what I don't want (the minutiae of cricket) with the heavyweight political and international coverage which I do.
In the evening I turn to Radio 4 again, for Radio Scotland can only offer five minutes on the day's events before wallowing in football or popular music.
Television does little better. Newsnight Scotland has carved out a distinctive place, but the lack of a single substantive extended television news bulletin from Scotland which is focused on where we are but which also reflects the world remains an outrage. After eight years of devolution BBC Scotland's bosses are still failing their country and their audience.
Mike Russell is a former Nationalist MSP and culture spokesman
MIKE RUSSELLThe full article contains 1474 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
