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MINUTES OF THE AUDIENCE COUNCIL SCOTLAND MEETING

Held on Friday, 11 October 2013 at Pacific Quay, BBC Scotland

Present: Neelam Bakshi David Garrick Jennifer Harrower Munwar Hussain Andrew Jones Jamie Kinlochan Matthew MacIver Lisa Peebles

Apologies: Trust member for Scotland/Chair, Bill Matthews Audience Council Scotland Amanda Bryan Iain Campbell Mary Duffy

In attendance from the Trust Unit: Allan Jack Chief Adviser Governance Co-ordinator & Secretary to Michelle Dunlop the Council Katey Thurlow Assistant to the Council

From the Executive: Head of Programmes & Services, BBC Donalda MacKinnon Scotland Alan Dickson Chief Operating Officer, BBC Scotland Head of News & Current Affairs, BBC John Boothman Scotland John Mullin Editor, Referendum Unit Catherine Smith Head of Strategy, BBC Scotland Geraldine Reilly Business Manager, BBC Scotland

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Minutes, matters arising and Trust Unit update

The minutes of the September meeting were taken as an accurate record.

Council member, Matthew MacIver chaired the meeting. He welcomed Lisa Peebles to her first meeting and thanked Jamie Kinlochan for his contributions to Council over the last three years.

Members were updated on recent BBC activity including the Director General’s vision for the BBC that he had outlined on 8 October. Proposed new initiatives included a commercial service which would allow people in the UK to buy and keep certain programmes, and a system to allow audiences to tag any piece of music to listen to later. There was also a proposal to enhance the iPlayer service.

Members’ attention was also drawn to the review of BBC governance which had been announced. The aim was to review the systems and structures and the culture surrounding the relationship between the Executive and the Trust. The aim was to simplify the relationship and provide better and clearer oversight of the way the licence fee is spent.

Other issues discussed included the launch of the Queen’s Baton Relay and radio programme issues.

Conduct of Audience Council Business

Chief Adviser, Scotland gave a presentation on the Audience Council Scotland business cycle. He discussed the key work strands including: service reviews and impartiality reviews; BBC Trust and Audience Council Scotland priorities; the delivery of the Public Purposes; the Commonwealth Games and Independence Referendum. There was also discussion on how the Council engages with licence fee payers and the BBC Executive.

Rural Affairs Impartiality Review Council members discussed issues and programmes in relation to the rural affairs impartiality review. Members commented that there were many programmes about rural areas, but little current affairs; and viewers in rural areas around Scotland were ‘shortchanged’ in BBC news coverage, which was too focused on . The National Trustee, an audience council member and the author of the review, Heather Hancock, would meet with stakeholders in Inverness on 13 November, to discuss the BBC’s coverage of rural areas of the UK.

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News & Current Affairs Members shared their views on BBC News & Current Affairs content they had consumed on television, radio and online. There continued to be considerable duplication between the items carried on the Six and Reporting Scotland. Members praised an innovative format on the referendum debate on Radio 5Live hosted by Victoria Derbyshire and there was praise for Mishal Husain on the Today programme. There was discussion of the substantial broadband deficit in Scotland, particularly in the Glasgow area, and the implications for delivery of the citizenship purpose. Other themes discussed included: the range of programmes offered, reporting styles and formats and current affairs output.

Service review of Television – BBC THREE & BBC FOUR Members discussed the roles and remits of BBC THREE and BBC FOUR. They assessed both channels performance including the mix of programmes on both channels. BBC THREE produced good quality programmes in entertainment, music and factual areas and noted that the programmes were designed to engage younger audiences. BBC FOUR offered high quality, engaging programming that was enriching and stimulated its audience. BBC FOUR played a distinctive and valuable role within the overall TV portfolio. Some members felt the channel could do more to broadcast international and foreign language feature films.

Representation of women on air Members noted that a forthcoming series on Scottish literature to be presented by Andrew Marr was entitled The Men Who Invented Scotland. Members considered that, more generally, there was a degree of stereotyping in the use of female presenters, who tended to be used disproportionately for consumer affairs.

Independence Referendum The recently-appointed Editor, Referendum Unit joined the meeting. He said his priorities were to ensure careful liaison between network and local programming, the need to test the various plans and predictions from both sides of the debate, and to ensure that there is appropriate UK-wide coverage as well as for Scotland. He said the online offering would be key. There would be pressure from both sides but the BBC would be fair, decent and impartial and would perform to the best of its ability.

Members asked what plans there were to be more innovative, and what role Scotland had to play. Head of News & Current Affairs said more detailed plans for overall coverage would be available in due course.

Head of Programmes & Services Report, monthly audience report and audience logs Head of Programmes & Services reported on recent activity and performance in BBC Scotland. She updated members on Generation 2014, a project which is part of a BBC Scotland initiative to engage 16 and 17 year olds who have a vote in the independence referendum. The initiative involved the selection of 50 young people from all over Scotland who will be able to vote for the first time. Fourteen news trainees also began a twelve month training scheme. Other activity included Pacific Quay playing host to the BBC Production Creativity CONFIDENTIAL

Festival in early October and BBC Scotland televised the Great Scottish Run on 6th October. Head of Programmes & Services provided some background on areas which had prompted audience complaint including BBC Scotland suspending Saturday presenter and comedian Tam Cowan after a controversial article column by him appeared in a daily newspaper. There had been a subsequent apology and he had been re-instated.

Date of Next Meeting The next meeting of the Audience Council for Scotland will be on Friday, 8th November 2013.

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