Originally Posted by p_c_u_k:
“Right then, a response to some of the comments?
Showing sport other than football - it's not commercially viable. The only Scottish sporting events that gain huge audiences in this country are SPL games, Rangers games and Scotland games. That's about it. Golf has a huge following but only international golf - I suspect if you showed the Largs links or something it would bomb. Rugby is regionally popular but that's not a big enough audience to justify splashing out on OBs, commentary, rights, etc. In terms of motorsport, the average punter only cares about F1 at a push.
STV and the other ITV companies used to show other sports because they had regional hours to fill. I'm quite sure many ITV companies in the 70s and 80s wouldn't have bothered if they didn't have to back then.
Investing in the north - STV already does way more than it has to in terms of regional content throughout Scotland. Where's the money in producing extra regional shows for the north only? It's a commercial television station, it exists to make money. The days of local shows died when you got multichannel TV and the advertising cake got cut into a million pieces. It ain't coming back.
Management heads should roll - They should roll if the company doesn't make any money. They should not roll if one or two people on a messageboard are unhappy.
ITV has realised its mistake over Border - No. It has come under political pressure to give the Scottish half extra content and has come up with a compromise so Ofcom doesn't hand the Scottish half over to STV. Which they are under a lot of pressure to do from many organisations, including this week the Borders Chambers of Commerce. It'll come to nothing of course, all ITV need to do is play along, give a few concessions and pretend they care. That's what they're doing. That's all they should do.
The north split - You know what, I actually agree. I don't think the Aberdeen/Dundee split works. I think the region is too geographically large for something like that to work. Aberdeen folk probably have more interest in Dundee than the Orkneys, but the split means they get stuff from a ridiculous distance away rather than relatively down the road. However, it is a commitment to more local programming and the intention is good, and no doubt other people think differently.
The STV Hogmanay show not being live - This is because STV knows people default to BBC Scotland for the big events and there's no point having a live crew that night. It's a shame, because the BBC has realised that and until recently its programming had become tired and complacent. I think it improved this year though.
"I used to think STV was a fine regional broadcaster..." - Do yourself a favour and look at some of the crap that masqueraded as local content from all the ITV companies in the supposed golden era of television. Then remember you had a choice of that or the BBC, and that was it. Then look at the fact even council telly offers you dozens of channels now. What do you genuinely prefer?
Taggart - It's dead. It's not STV's fault, it's not anyone's fault, I liked the last series, but the investment STV even with network backing could put into a crime show pales into insignificance in comparison to CSI and NCIS. There are certain things I don't think UK TV can compete with any more, and big crime dramas are one of them.
Network dramas - STV opt out of very few of these now. They've learned from their Downton Abbey mistake. To be fair, even the people behind Downton Abbey didn't expect it to be the mainstream success it was.”
Regarding regional content - but not everyone in Scotland speaks Glasweigan, I would understand if they had shows with different presenters of the areas but obviously STV don't think like that.
Regarding Borders TV, I have no real idea about that but I personally think is at least a step forward and at least its being acknowledged compare to how STV have done us in the North.
Being honest Grampian TV in my opinion was not bad in what it provided for us locally/regionally but ever since that merge its like its been run by a bunch of 3 year olds! (tech faults - no real acknowledgement or an apology - its just swept under carpet and/or place blame elsewhere ITV
Split bulletin: I don't know why it has been done most of the stories during it are a waste of time being honest - could hear it on radio or be in the local paper and again annoys me with the Dundee side is trying to be "funny" at the end before joining (it fails EVERYTIME - stop doing it!), but I would rather we under one main bulletin prior to this.
Network Dramas - yes that maybe true but they still have "jumped" a step on a missing series of Scott and Bailey (ITV3 played catch up before new series started).
Regarding sports other than football - surely the channel could share with SKY ie backed a bid on rights and show them on STV?? I am pretty sure thats happened with a couple games on TV recently with ITV (not sure if it was UEFA or it was like Man U V Chelsea (random teams), thats what I should think should happen. Maybe if all the networks worked together and provided better for the viewer than concentrate on profits, its just greed