STV’s decision to rush through job and programming cuts labelled ‘arrogant’ and ‘knee-jerk’
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has told MPs that STV’s decision to axe News at 6 North in its current form regardless of what Ofcom says is “arrogance beyond belief”.
Giving evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee in Westminster this morning, Nick McGowan-Lowe, NUJ Scotland organiser, said the broadcaster was treating viewers, politicians, business leaders and the unions with contempt in pressing ahead with proposals to move presentation and production of the STV North programme to Glasgow.
“STV knows STV North’s news programme is highly successful because it knows it has a 41% market share. It knows it is profitable because the advertising is well above schedule,” McGowan-Lowe told the committee.
He added: “It knows it is loved by viewers, because of the huge public outcry it is now facing. It knows the programme is respected by the business community because of the coverage it does in the area. STV has also managed to unite opposition from the leaders across the five political parties in Holyrood.
“The plan to plough ahead to move production and presentation to Glasgow regardless of any Ofcom consultation is arrogance beyond belief.”
The broadcaster has said it does not need Ofcom permission to move production and presentation away from Aberdeen, and that it will do so regardless of what the broadcasting regulator rules. The move would see up to 10 roles being placed at risk out of the 60 redundancies the company says it intends to make across the business.
The NUJ had previously described the proposed axing of STV North’s News at 6 programme and up to 30 job cuts in the newsroom as “an act of cultural vandalism for journalism in Scotland.”
Also speaking at the committee hearing, Philippa Childs, head of Bectu, which represents technical staff at the broadcaster, said: “We all recognise the environment is difficult for broadcasters currently, and they are all facing the same commercial challenges. This is a bit of a knee-jerk reaction from STV and certainly unexpected. We do think that this is short-sighted and that it would be a mistake. It will impact the whole of the creative industry’s skills across Scotland should this decision proceed.”
STV owns the only two channel 3 licences outside of the ITV network, and owning the licences comes with obligations to fulfil certain levels of news coverage and local programming.
STV Central is based in Glasgow, covering the central belt, and STV North is based in Aberdeen, covering 1.3m viewers in the north and north-east of Scotland, the Western Isles, Orkney, Shetland as well as Angus and Dundee. In September the company announced plans to merge the two separate flagship news programmes into a single programme, anchored in Glasgow.
STV has asked Ofcom’s permission to vary its licence conditions, which is needed to produce a single news programme across the two licence areas. The NUJ has been campaigning for an extensive consultation period to allow all stakeholder voices to be heard.
In evidence to the Scottish Parliament earlier this month Rufus Radcliffe, STV chief executive, told MSPs that Ofcom and the broadcaster had agreed the minimum four-week consultation period would be sufficient. Ofcom has subsequently denied to the NUJ that any consultation period has yet been decided and says that it anticipates that any consultation would begin before the end of the year.
The NUJ has warned MPs and MSPs that any such move would fundamentally undermine the successful STV North News at Six and dilute the strengths of the STV Central edition. The changes would almost certainly see the North programme format changed to a pre-recorded one, meaning it would be difficult to cover any news story that could develop after 4pm, affecting coverage of breaking news, Holyrood politics, court cases, and sports. It would also see the Aberdeen studio mothballed, despite being upgraded earlier this year at a cost of £500,000.
The NUJ says that while there is a discussion to be had over the public service broadcasting obligations given changing nature of news consumption, the proposed cuts are a knee-jerk reaction to the collapse of STV’s share price following a profits warning in July.
In September NUJ members at STV passed a unanimous vote of no confidence in management which said: “The NUJ members at STV have no confidence in the chief executive Rufus Radcliffe and his leadership team to continue to lead us in light of financial mismanagement and the failure and abandonment of the strategy refresh in May.”