Closedown

BBC Scotland's comms team are rolling the pitch for the expected announcement of the end of a separate BBC Scotland tv channel soon-ish - they've dropped releases about "A brand new high stakes legal drama Counsels coming to BBC iPlayer in early 2027", set in Glasgow with "Scottish writers"; and posted trails for the "BBC Scottish comedy channel on YouTube". 

The much-anticipated closure of BBC Scotland's dedicated linear channel is but a punctuation mark in the unsteady story of the BBC and Scotland. Hark back nearly thirty years to the growing campaign for a "Scottish Six", the demand from Scottish politicians for a 'national news bulletin' from Scotland, with a combined 'national' perspective on Scottish, UK and international affairs. It was firmly opposed by John Birt, who, in his autobiography, admitted discussing how to deal with the issue with Tony Blair; concession might lead to a bridgehead to break up the union. 

In 2008, the Scottish Broadcasting Commission was set up, under former STV and BBC editor Blair Jenkins, and, in 2010, it made the case for a 'new digital network'; they estimated the cost at £72m a year.  The campaign was left aside in the 2014 referendum, with Blair Jenkins as chair of "Yes, Scotland". 

The idea of a Scottish Six came off the backburner in 2015, lead inside the BBC by Ken Macquarrie, the Gaelic-speaking Director of Scotland, and endorsed by luminaries such as Allan Little. Under DG Tony Hall, pilots were attempted for a 'News Hour' for Scotland, mixing items for the 6 O'Clock News with Reporting Scotland, and promising Scotland a handful for additional correspondents.  The Telegraph accused Lord Hall of 'buckling to SNP pressure'. 

Lord Hall moved in a different direction in 2017, announcing the creation of BBC Scotland, with a budget of just £32m, and its own news bulletins. It launched in 2018, and the first night attracted and average of 700,000 viewers, with a reach of 13%.  In 2020, weekly reach was just 20% of the Scottish population; last year it was down to 13% a week. That compares with 43% who at least try Gaelic-channel BBC Alba (usually for football with the sound off) once a week. 

It falls to Director of Scotland Hayley Valentine, launch editor of The Nine, to perform the last rites on the channel.

 

At home

In 2023, King's College, Cambridge, staged an exhibition of 50 photographic portraits of King’s women, taken by Jooney Woodward, to mark the 50th anniversary of the admission of women as students to the College. They still hang, now placed around the college.

This is Rachel Jupp, the new Director of News at the BBC, at home in north London.  She was at King's from 1996 to 1999, leaving with a BA in Social and Political Science. 

New messenger

It's six years since Rachel Jupp worked at the front end of BBC journalism, as editor of Panorama. BBC DG Matt Brittin, who knows a lot about leadership and a bit about news, must have been convinced that Rachel can articulate a recommitment to "the BBC's distinctive journalistic mission while reinventing how we serve audiences", both inside and outside BBC News.  

Rachel, 49, (Orleans Park School, Richmond upon Thames College, BA Social and Political Sciences, King's College Cambridge, MA Public Administration, Columbia University) left a strong run at Panorama for a fixer's job in BBC Content, alongside Charlotte Moore. It's there she constructed a 'case' for the closing the BBC Singers as we know them. That change didn't stick.  In December 2025 she was brought back into News as a sticking plaster after the self-inflicted wounds of "Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone"; a sort of Director of Prevention of Unforced Errors in Documentaries. 

There will be those disappointed by one sidebar in the announcement of Rachel as Director of News; Mr Brittin said Jonathan Munro "will return to his substantive role as Deputy Director of News and BBC News Global Director when Rachel starts.” Otherwise, BBC Culture Editor Katie Razzall called Rachel's appointed 'a bold move', and former Beeboids Mark Urban, Danny Shaw and the pseudonymous Charlie Walsham approve via X. 

Rachel will get £400k a year; it would have been nice if Matt thinks she's brilliant, to have seen her also announced as a Board member; that may be awaiting a formality.  

Jupp, a mother of three, is the granddaughter of Rev Tom Jupp, once Vicar of St Peter's Belsize Park ("An Anglican church in the liberal catholic tradition"). The Reverend played no small part in helping the growing post-war Jewish community in the area setting up a synagogue in the former vicarage. And Rachel's husband, ITN news editor Jonathan Wald is a member of that Belsize Square Synagogue, where they married.  

Lisa and Matt

Between April and June, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy met BBC DG Matt Brittin three times to discuss 'BBC live issues'. Lisa also turned to James Corden, for a discussion on 'youth and arts policy'. Her junior minister Ian Murray had two meetings with unnamed BBC personnel to discuss 'announcements'; he also turned to Barbara Speed, deputy head of Guardian Opinion, for a discussion on BBC Charter Review.  

Statfest

I'm still struggling with what 'success' looks like for the BBC on social media. Here are the words of someone promoting Newsnight content, and again, I fail to see the baselines and comparators that would help you judge whether the effort is worth it...and any editorial assessment of the content that's hitting home (beyond the Rory Stewart stare)... 

For the first six months of this year, the total reach of Newsnight content across the BBC’s social media platforms was 203,611,875 - that’s a 25% increase compared with the first six months of 2025.

During the first six months of 2026, the total number of views for Newsnight uploads to the  BBC Politics YouTube account was 19,973,306. This represents 70% of the channel’s total views during that period. It also shows a 67% increase on the number of views for Newsnight content uploaded to the account compared with the first six months of 2025.

When it comes to subscribers, Newsnight continued to blossom during the first half of the year. Across TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, Newsnight’s subscribers rose by more than 125,000. If you include the BBC Politics YouTube account, the total comes to 175,000 - a success we share with other talented teams across BBC News. 

Front foot

"We don't yet know what the Charter is gonna ask us to do, so we don't know what our future remit will be".  Thus, BBC DG Matt Brittin in his 'keynote' to this week's meeting at the Royal Television Society in London. 

Enough of this slow, empty stadium bicycle race between BBC apparatchiks and DCMS officials. What we need from the BBC is a clear description of the remit it wants, and the content it thinks will meet that remit over the next five to ten years. 

PS Please do not be distracted by the 'channel closures' to come in the days ahead. The world has moved on to cheap and cheerful fast streams, and, on Freeview, Freesat, Freely,  Sky there are mutiple 'channels' to deliver the variants of BBC1 and BBC2 seen in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and to carry the local news optouts from English Regions. Arguably, the BBC could produce more 'channels'; in the United States, Amazon's Freevee service carries channels called BBC Comedy, BBC Gameshows, BBC Sci-Fi, BBC Travel and Silent Witness/New Tricks 

Esther and radio

 Harry Barnato Rantzen was a senior BBC engineer in the days of Lord Reith, working at Savoy Hill, in charge of 'lines and design' and very much part of the 'Control Room'.  He had to ensure the delivery of the first radio Christmas message from Sandringham in 1932 (a Reith idea), and was on hand for the abdication address in 1936.  He enjoyed mixing with 'artists' including Henry Hall, and the engineering team would have a 'Worker's Playtime' of their own, featuring Claude Dampier and Tessie O'Shea.

He went on to work for Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, running laboratories in Harlow, and wrote “Uncertainty in nature and communications”; reviewed as "not an easy read with some obscure maths and a proposed new fundamental physical constant derived from the curvature of the Earth – the ‘Curth’". 

Was Esther a 'nepo baby' ? Her father certainly encouraged Esther academically, and, after graduating from Somerville, Oxford, she joined the BBC as a trainee sound engineer in 1963.  By 1965, she was also socialising at BBC tv studios in Lime Grove, and had decided that the life of a junior studio manager was not for her - "essentially a dogsbody who was expected to do the chores". In particular, this meant providing sound effects for the recordings of radio plays, either from disc or 'real'. 

In 1965 she was working for drama producer Betty Davies, in the radio recording of a long, dull play called "The Waters of the Moon", a 1951 stage play by N. C. Hunter about oddball guests stranded by a snowstorm in an isolated hotel on Dartmoor.  Lead actors were Coral Browne and Virginia Maskell. Two young things go ice-skating, and the girl falls. Esther remembered she thought the scream from the actress would be enough, but Betty disagreed. A plank was found, and Esther fell to the ground a number of times til Betty was happy with the effect.  That night, Esther handed in a letter of resignation to her head of department, and was unemployed until being taken on the production team of Ned Sherrin, making "BBC3". There, the glamorous life was complete when she was in the back of the gallery as Kenneth Tynan uttered the 'f'-word live on air.

Here's an extract from "The Waters of The Moon", Betty Davies (pictured) producing, Esther on spot effects.  Was it worth it ?

            

tradingaswdr · waters of the moon

Climb every mountain

BBC Deputy DG Rhodri Talfan Davies was at the heart of switching resources out of local radio and into 'digital', and continues to laud online hits. Of course, the switch started in BBC Wales/Cymru, when Rhodri was Director there. And the practice of promoting stories that have a marginal relationship with most definitions of 'news' continues. 

Take this, from Monday, constructed from one Disney+ clip, an Instagram post, and some repeating of public comments.  

Webbed foot

The Commons Culture Committee's Charter review has played back many of the BBC's requests for a new Charter; so many, indeed, that we're no closer to a workable way forward.

Dangerously, though, they talk about a leaner BBC, with more people paying, but a lower sum than at present. They suggest any household with a PC, Tablet or Smartphone should be liable to pay for a 'reformed licence', but with no suggestion on means of enforcement - and so, we're just in the same place. Evasion is evasion, whether the licence fee is £200 a year or £100, and evasion, silently encouraged by the BBC's traditional opponents, is still the problem. 

The launch of the report provided Justin Webb with a moment he'll want to recall in the golf club. 

tradingaswdr · Webb woopsie

Retire

The BBC's Ben Chu is on the digital frontline churning out gobbets of Verify for social media. But this one, has got the tone wrong, pitting yoof against stereotpyed oldies, according to more than one of my correspondents.