SMG station will commission content

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SMG's proposed Scottish digital station will commission original factual programming from Scottish indies, chief executive Rob Woodward has pledged.

The as-yet-unnamed channel, which would need £15m of funding from the Scottish government to be set up, has been positioned largely as an archive channel featuring STV shows and licensed BBC content.

But Woodward told the Broadcasting Press Guild today that as well as leveraging STV's existing news and current affairs output, the channel would feature some factual commissions and would set up quotas for Scottish indies to produce them.

SMG has proposed the channel to Ofcom and outlined details in its submission to the regulator's public service broadcasting review alongside its call for funding to protect its regional news output, which currently costs £7m a year.

"Provision of local TV is a natural part of the hierarchy we're trying to build and this will be aimed initially at the main Scottish cities," Woodward said. "If we get the DTT capability we're after, we could have local breakouts on the channel. We're also looking at broadband delivery."

Meanwhile, STV continues to push for Ofcom and the DCMS to recognise its TV production arm as an independent producer outside of Scotland in a bid to help it win commissions from broadcasters other than ITV.

"By content, we're the 10th largest producer in the UK and outside of the BBC, we're the largest Scottish producer, but we sell nothing to the BBC," Woodward said.

He claimed ITV was supportive of the proposal, which he estimated would add around 30% to its content business over the next two to three years.