Brian Ferguson at the launch of a new blueprint for “Culture in an independent Scotland”

Transcript

00:00 Hello folks, it's Brian Ferguson, the Arts Correspondent at the Scotsman here from the

00:07 Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow. I've just been here today for a briefing with the Scottish

00:12 Government on the latest paper on their plans for an independent Scotland. Quite an interesting

00:20 one today, it was all about arts and culture and what the future may look like in an independent

00:26 Scotland. The one big area of interest in the plan is the proposal which has been around

00:35 before but has been revised to have a new independent Scottish state broadcaster. There's

00:46 been quite a bit of focus in the past on what that may mean for viewers in Scotland. One

00:51 of the hot topics at the moment is what that may mean for the broadcasting of international

00:58 sports events. The Scottish Government are just making it clear that a priority for them,

01:04 if and when that broadcaster was to be set up, a big priority for them would be identifying

01:13 major sports events that they would see as a priority to be shown free to access in Scotland.

01:19 It's a very hot topic because as many people will be aware, the big international football

01:26 matches are not shown on either BBC or STV in Scotland, they are on pay-per-view services.

01:35 So that's one of the big issues in there. The general issue of having a new state broadcaster

01:45 is a very interesting one. There are inevitably a lot of unanswered questions over exactly

01:51 how this organisation would be run. The Government are talking about potentially a licence fee

01:59 in Scotland paying for the whole thing. There are obviously questions about what that may

02:03 mean for BBC Scotland and its resources in future, but also Channel 4 and what the potential

02:12 impact that may have on the content that people see already in Scotland. It's very interesting

02:20 to see them revive the concept of that idea, but also pin it on sport as being a big priority.

02:31 The general principles behind it as well are that they want to ensure that a Scottish state

02:37 broadcaster is as impartial as possible, but also is meeting the demands and aspirations

02:44 of a wider variety of people in Scotland at the moment. But also crucially, that the key

02:49 decisions on what is broadcast in Scotland are actually taken in Scotland, which obviously

02:55 does not happen at the moment with the BBC. So obviously this document has arrived at

03:01 a really interesting time. There is a general feeling of crisis in the Scottish cultural

03:07 sector at the moment, and people are looking for a lot more certainty on future funding

03:13 for the Government. So it's arrived at an interesting time, as clearly a lot of work

03:17 has gone into this document. There will be a lot of interest in what the Government has

03:25 got to say for itself in this document, but also maybe people wondering why this has been

03:29 a priority to produce this now when there does seem to be such a need for future certainty

03:35 on funding. So the full details of the story are on our website, and will be updated a

03:41 bit later on.