BROADCASTERS have been accused of snubbing Scotland in flagship network programmes.
Broadcaster Lesley Riddoch, speaking at the Scottish Liberal Democrat conference in Aviemore yesterday, said historian Dr David Starkey presented a series on the monarchy in Britain which dealt only with the monarchy in England. "On radio, Michael
Portillo fronted a series on the history of the Armada – in the English Channel," said Riddoch. "In Scotland, we had a wee brush with the Armada too. So did the Irish, the Welsh, and just about everybody."
She aired these criticisms in her opening remarks to a conference consultation session on broadcasting. Riddoch argued that the changed landscape of devolution had made it more difficult to interest London producers in material from Scotland that was not either quirky or "caricature".
"I think there is a big problem now about broadcasting in the UK because of devolution," said Riddoch.
"The difficulty is, what do we have that speaks to England in the current set-up?"
Talking of the difficulty of pitching ideas for radio to London executives, she said: "You can see through their eyes that this just doesn't cut it.
"You find yourself constantly doing what seems to be perhaps the marginal stories from Scotland – that kind of almost caricature of what Scotland is about, because the main bread and butter of what we are about now doesn't quite apply to everybody else."
But that did not apply in reverse, she said, citing the example of Portillo and the Spanish Armada .
She said it could be argued that Scottish programme makers should not be confined to subjects purely about Scotland.
But she said the BBC had found itself "if not in hot water, then in tepid water" for producing programmes such as Film 2008 which were nominally produced in Scotland but had no Scottish content.
