On the TV/broadcasting side of things – at the moment Scots license fee payers put in 340m but only 100m is being spent in Scotland so we are being short-changed. That makes us mugs.
With independence the state broadcaster would therefore have another 240m to play with. Some of that would be used to make more domestic programming – providing jobs and an economic benefit as well as a social/cultural/political benefit. Some of it could be used to buy into programming from elsewhere which of course would include the BBC but would not be the BBC exclusively.
Because yes the BBC is great but it is not the only great broadcaster out there. Other people have mentioned HBO and I think many of us would agree that Game of Thrones is outstanding TV. Packed full of British actors – but not made by the BBC. There is a bigger world of broadcasting out there than just the choices made by BBC executives.
And it’s a world that might be interested in buying some of our stuff too. We may scoff at the tartan and heather stuff but there are millions of people out there in the world who have Scots ancestry and might be into a bit of Bonnie Prince Charlie meets the Stag in the Glen. We shouldn’t just be thinking of broadcasting in terms of what we ourselves want to watch, we should also be thinking about what the rest of the world wants to watch and what can we give them? It is a global market we are talking about after all.
