BBC Scotland (also referred to as the BBC Scotland channel) is a Scottish local free-to-air

public broadcast Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive ...

television channel owned and operated by the

BBC Scotland BBC Scotland is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Scotland. Its headquarters are in Glasgow, employing approximately 1,250 staff as of 2017, to produce 15,000 hours of television and radio programming per year. BBC Scotla ...

division of the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

. It airs a nightly lineup of entirely Scottish programming. The channel launched 24 February 2019, replacing the

BBC Two Scotland BBC Two Scotland is a Scottish free-to-air television channel owned and operated by BBC Scotland as a variation of the BBC Two network. It was broadcast via digital television and was the sister Scottish channel of BBC One Scotland and Gaelic-l ...

opt-out The term opt-out refers to several methods by which individuals can avoid receiving unsolicited product or service information. This option is usually associated with direct marketing campaigns such as e-mail marketing or direct mail. A list of th ...

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

, but operating as an autonomous channel (displacing

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

on Freeview in Scotland).

History

As of 2017,

had operated

regional variation A regional variation generally refers to times when a radio station or television station simultaneously broadcasts different programs, continuity or advertisements to different parts of its coverage area. This may be so as to provide programmi ...

s of

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

and

for the Scottish region, as well as the

Gaelic Gaelic (pronounced for Irish Gaelic and for Scots Gaelic) is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". It may refer to: Languages * Gaelic languages or Goidelic languages, a linguistic group that is one of the two branches of the Insul ...

channel

BBC Alba BBC Alba is a Scottish Gaelic-language free-to-air public broadcast television channel jointly owned by the BBC and MG Alba. The channel was launched on 19 September 2008 and is on-air for up to seven hours a day. The name ' is the Scottish Gae ...

. On 22 February 2017, BBC director general Lord Hall announced that the corporation planned to replace

with a new, part-time BBC Scotland television channel, focused exclusively on Scottish programming. A feature of the channel would be an hour-long 9:00 p.m. weeknight newscast produced from Scotland, covering national and international headlines from a Scottish perspective. The proposed newscast was compared to the frequent proposals for a Scotland opt-out of the ''

BBC News at Six The ''BBC News at Six'' is the BBC's evening news programme on British television channels BBC One and BBC News (British TV channel), BBC News (UK feed), broadcast weeknights at 6:00pm and produced by BBC News. It is normally broadcast for 30 ...

''. Hall also announced that the BBC would increase its overall spending on factual and drama productions in Scotland by £20 million annually. BBC Scotland 2019 vertical

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, internet, telecommunications and mail, postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-rang ...

granted provisional approval to the new service in April 2018, but showed concerns for its proposal to only dedicate half of its lineup to new programmes (seeing it as removing potential opportunities for independent producers), and directed the BBC to ensure that the channel does not have an undue impact on competing news outlets (including newspapers and other broadcasters, with the former expressing concern that the BBC would poach employees from newspapers to build its expanded Scotland news operation). Ofcom granted final approval to the service in June 2018: the BBC subsequently announced a planned launch for February 2019. The channel will be allocated £32 million in annual funding. In preparation for the launch of the new channel, BBC Two Scotland was discontinued and replaced by the networked version beginning 18 February. BBC Scotland launched 24 February at 7:00 p.m.; it signed on with an introductory video, featuring a performance of "

Miracle A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divi ...

" by the Scottish synthpop group

Chvrches Chvrches (stylised CHVRCHΞS and pronounced "Churches") are a Scottish synth-pop band from Glasgow, formed in September 2011. The band consists of Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook, Martin Doherty and, unofficially since 2018, Jonny Scott. Mostly deriv ...

, accompanied by the

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO) is a Scottish broadcasting symphony orchestra based in Glasgow. One of five full-time orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), it is the oldest full-time professional rad ...

. Its first programme was a variety special (''A Night at the Theatre'') hosted by comedian Iain Stirling. Opening night programming also included the broadcast television premiere of the documentary '' Nae Pasaran'', the one-off '' Burnistoun'' special ''Burnistoun Tunes In'', and the ninth and final series premiere of ''

Still Game ''Still Game'' is a Scotland, Scottish sitcom produced by Effingee Productions, The Comedy Unit and BBC Scotland. It was created by Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill, who played the lead characters, Jack Jarvis (Still Game character), Jack Jarvis, ...

''. Viewership peaked at 700,000.

Programming

BBC Scotland's main broadcast hours are 7:00 p.m. to midnight and outside of these hours, it simulcasts

BBC Radio Scotland BBC Radio Scotland is a Scottish national radio network owned and operated by BBC Scotland, a division of the BBC. It broadcasts a wide variety of programmes. It replaced the Scottish BBC Radio 4 opt-out service of the same name from 23 N ...

. At least 95% of programming must be of Scottish origin, and the BBC stated that roughly half of its programming would be new. Initially, the channel simulcast the BBC Two schedule between midday and 7pm with surrounding continuity from BBC Scotland, thereby accommodating the daytime sport and political programming opt-outs which had been displaced following the closure of

. The first main programme to air on BBC Scotland was the 9th series premiere of ''

'' on the channel's first day. The channel’s first drama commission ''Guilt'' was a significant success, receiving a strong critical reception and winning a number of awards. ''Guilt'' has gone on to be broadcast around the world.

News

BBC Scotland's flagship news programme was ''The Nine'', an hour-long weeknight newscast which reports on UK and international news from a Scottish perspective. The program aired on Mondays through Thursdays. On Fridays and weekends, the channel aired a shorter, 7 p.m. bulletin, ''The Seven''; it aired for a half hour on Fridays and 15 minutes on weekends; on Saturdays, ''The Seven'' was followed by the entertainment recap ''The Edit''. The panel discussion programme ''Seven Days'' aired on Sunday nights, which featured discussions and analysis of the week's news headlines. On 20 February 2024, amid poor viewership, BBC Scotland announced major cutbacks to the channel's news programming, with ''The Edit'' and ''Seven Days'' cancelled, and ''The Nine'' being replaced by a half-hour news programme on weeknights. These changes were approved by Ofcom in August 2024. In September 2024, BBC Scotland premiered ''The Entertainment Mix'', a weekly entertainment newsmagazine hosted by singer-songwriter Michelle McManus.

Sport

BBC Scotland has traditionally shown sport on Friday evenings with

Scottish Championship The Scottish Championship known as the William Hill (bookmaker), William Hill Championship for sponsorship reasons, is the second tier of the Scottish Professional Football League, the league competition for men's professional association footb ...

and the early rounds of the

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Sportscene ''Sportscene'' is the name of a range of Scottish sports television programmes produced by BBC Scotland. History ''Sportscenes predecessors were ''Sports Special from Scotland'' and ''Sportsreel'', which was broadcast every Saturday at around ...

'' presented by Leanne Crichton and Steven Thompson from 7.00pm. With football talk show ''A View From The Terrace'', adapted from the cult ''Terrace Scottish Football Podcast'' aired later on Friday evenings. ''AVFTT'' is produced by Edinburgh-based Studio Something and is presented by Craig G. Telfer, with analysis from Shaughan McGuigan, and

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact (newspaper), compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until ...

journalists Craig Fowler and Joel Sked.

Continuity announcers

There are three main continuity announcers on the BBC Scotland channel, who also double up as playout directors, overseeing transmission of the channel's programming and presentation. * Dominic Main from Drongan was a student at the

University of the West of Scotland The University of the West of Scotland (), formerly the University of Paisley, is a public university with four campuses in south-western Scotland, in the towns of Paisley, Blantyre, Dumfries and Ayr, as well as a campus in London, England. T ...

and has studied broadcast production for many years. * George Taylor from

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

worked in marketing for ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'' and ''The Times Scotland''. * Jennie Cook from

Kingussie Kingussie ( ; ) is a small town in the Badenoch and Strathspey ward of the Highland council area of Scotland. Counties of Scotland, Historically in Inverness-shire, it lies beside the A9 road (Great Britain), A9 road, although the old route of ...

is a former Capital Scotland breakfast presenter. * Cameron McKenna from

(relief announcer) is a former STV continuity announcer and a former radio newsreader. All continuity on the channel is performed live and broadcast from Pacific Quay.

Identification

BBC Scotland's idents feature the channel's logo in the centre of the screen, usually accompanied with a background that fits the colour of the logo when it eventually is lit up. In the first set of idents, the BBC Scotland logo is featured among cobblestones on a rainy street, a bird which flies around the logo as well as a subway station (specifically Buchanan Street subway station in

References

Notes

External links

* * {{Navboxes, list1= {{BBC Scotland {{BBC Television {{Television in Scotland {{Media in the United Kingdom, television {{Freeview BBC television channels in the United Kingdom English-language television stations in the United Kingdom BBC Scotland Television channels and stations established in 2019 2019 establishments in Scotland Television channels in Scotland