Hi, I'm Chris Thompson from Investor Intel, and today I'm speaking with David Riegan, the CEO of Sonat Nanotech. S-O-N-A is the ticker symbol on the Canadian Security Exchange. How are you today, David? I'm great, Chris. Thanks for having me on. Your company is a nanotechnology life sciences company. Maybe for investors who may not know much about what that is, can you give us a brief background on it? Sure. So Sonat Nanotech is a company that's been built up around its proprietary and patent-pending gold nanoraw technology. And really what that is is the technology that enables us to manipulate particles of gold on the nanoscale uniquely without the use of toxins. And that, I'll tell you a little bit further on, but why that's important. But we've built the company up and we've got two focuses leveraging on that technology. Okay. And so what are the focuses that the technology is used for? So the gold nanoraws can be used in a variety of different applications. We've built up an expertise in lateral flow rapid tests. So the ones like pregnancy tests and of course the COVID tests that we've all seen owe so many times in the past year and a half, sadly. The second area is a longer-term focus for us in terms of researching out the capabilities of our particular technology that will enable them to be used in the body for such things as photothermal applications and targeted drug delivery. Okay. So are you, and how are you testing these applications? Are you working with various universities? I saw there was a recent announcement with U of T. Maybe you can go into that a bit. Yeah. We're very fortunate to be working with Dr. Warren Chan at the leading Bioengineering Institute in Canada and their lab. And we're very excited. And what we'll be exploring in the studies that will be announced in the future, we expect, is the biocompatibility of our gold nanorawds. Again, going back to this idea that we uniquely can make gold nanorawds without the use of toxins. And that, of course, you can imagine, Chris, is going to be extremely important when we start taking these tiny gold nanorawds and putting them in the body for various medical applications. Now, I've got to say this is an emerging area of science and medicine. And it is many years from fully being developed. And it will rely upon researchers and entrepreneurs from around the world. But we believe we can play a very important role in that. And what are the sort of the major diagnostic tests that you would be using the gold nanorawds with? So there are a variety of different rapid tests we're working on right now. A concussion test, importantly, rapid concussion test doesn't exist that can be used within a number of minutes field side. We're working on, of course, a COVID test. And we have a COVID test that uses saliva that we're very excited about. We partnered with a great company in the U.S. that's already FDA certified called Arlington Scientific. And to date, there's no rapid saliva test that's been approved. We think that's one that can make, can play a very, very important role in limiting the pandemic. We'll just follow this train of thought for a second with the COVID test. And that relationship, will that sort of bring revenue into the company sort of in the next year or so? Well, it's interesting as we talk about the two different areas of focus the company has right now. The first one on diagnostics, that we expect much near term revenues to accrue from there, particularly our COVID saliva test, which is in the midst of an IRB approval in the U.S. And we expect to kick off a clinical study for it in the coming weeks. And now, what is your background with the company? So I've been with the company for about a year and a half. It's been a very exciting time for the company. The company was in a startup phase of the time and the company has grown a fair amount and has learned a great deal in the last year and a half. It's been exciting times and we're very pleased at this stage with the developments both on the longer term research prospects for our gold nanorod technology, as well as the near term revenues associated with, for what we expect to be revenues associated with an antigen test for saliva in the U.S. in the coming months. So as investors looking at your company to make an investment in the biotech space, what can they expect from the new flow, say for the next six months or so into 2022? Well, Chris, we've got a number of things going on on both fronts. First, on the fundamental research side, which is we believe the bigger opportunity, frankly, but much, much more longer term because of those medical applications and the work that needs to be done by many around the world. But nonetheless, with an MOU with the University of Toronto's Bioengineering Institute announced, we hope to have more to discuss around that as far as some of the specific studies that we think can be quite exciting because we expect to be able to prove out the biocompatibility of our gold nanorods. On the other side of the company, on the rapid diagnostics front, we've already announced that we are anticipating a clinical trial for our saliva test in the U.S. with a U.S. partner who is FDA certified and has a great deal of experience working with the FDA and has extremely strong distribution in the U.S. So we think there'll be a number of different developments to be speaking about in the coming months. If all goes well. Well, great. We look forward to following your company and interviewing you again soon when you have some additional news. And I appreciate your time. Today, I was speaking with David Regan, who is the CEO of Sonon Nanotech, ticker symbol as S-O-N-A on the CSE. Thanks for your time, David. Thanks, Chris. Look forward to catching up next time.


Y fan iawn iddyn nhw yn hefyd iechyd â GBC. Rydyn nhw gweithio i candodd ddechrau Hans Bullffred, Ysgrif amb cychadin nhw FBC. Maes eu cychelwr FBC dechrau D won Donald Makinnan i ymedgech i'r FBC Scotlandiau, ieg薦 d tunes I hardly need to make a few introductions, but for those of you who haven't met us, I'm Steve Morrison and I'm the member for Scotland on the BBC board. I've worked in television for 45 years, predominantly for Grenada, where I was the chief executive, and then I found it all three media, which became the largest independent group of television production companies in the UK, and currently has 20 companies around the world. I'm joined by my colleagues who have appeared before you before, Anne Boulford on my right, who is the deputy director general of the BBC, and Anne is responsible for, among other things, finance, HR, operations, design and engineering, marketing in audiences and much more. Of course, you all know Donalda MacKinnon on my left, who is the director of BBC Scotland and is responsible for the strategic direction and the programmes and services produced in Scotland. The role of the Scottish member on this new BBC board is to ensure that the views of the Scottish population are represented and reflected in the BBC's output and to engage with stakeholders and licence fee payers in Scotland to ensure that the BBC assesses and meets the needs of our diverse community. As a member of this board, obviously, I'm also involved in discussion and decision making on the global issues facing the BBC and also sits on the main BBC board. I chair the Scotland Committee, which oversees and monitors BBC Scotland's strategy and output. I also believe that it's part of my role to help BBC Scotland wherever I can to encourage them to be bold and ambitious in growing their output, both in Scotland and to the UK and the wider world. Before I was appointed, the BBC director general, Tony Hall, announced plans for significant growth in the BBC's output in Scotland. With a new BBC Scotland channel launching next February, it will create 900 hours of original content a year and an enhanced BBC Alba with new weekend news and an ambition to create an additional 100 hours of original programmes. Notably, after February, Scotland will be the only nation in the UK with two of its own dedicated BBC channels. This growth will bring significant new jobs, 80 extra roles in journalism, 50 already appointed, another 88 new jobs in digital and engineering by the end of March 2019, and with additional posts to support the new channel and growth in other parts of the BBC in Scotland, the BBC will take us to around 270 new posts by the end of March, including 10 trainee journalists and 10 apprentices. This also includes the BBC funding of 21 local democracy reporters who work on local newspapers around Scotland. When I was appointed, I was struck by the new charter responsibility for the BBC to help to grow the creative industries in the nations and regions. Consequently, I have played a part in engaging with Creative Scotland and encouraging it to strengthen its television and screen content strategy and to form a successful partnership with the BBC. A new memorandum of understanding between the BBC and Creative Scotland is nearly ready to be introduced, and I was pleased to see the Scottish Government put an extra £10 million into Creative Scotland's budget to help to drive this new strategy. At the same time, as you know, Channel 4 is setting up a new hub in Glasgow, and the national film and television school Scotland has been set up in Pacific Key with help from the BBC and the Scottish Government. Speaking as I do as the national film school's first graduate, I'm delighted about this new development, and you'll hear more about it from Dynaldur. Overall, I'm very proud to be the board member for Scotland at this point, the point of its biggest investment in programmes and services for Scotland in a generation. Thank you, convener. Thank you very much, Steve. I take this opportunity to welcome you to your position on the board. Thank you for that very comprehensive opening statement. You will be aware that the committee has raised the issue of the amount of the BBC licence fee that is spent in Scotland. We have raised it in our most recent report into the screen sector in Scotland, where we say that it is too low, and we have raised it repeatedly when the BBC come before us annually to talk about their accounts. This year, the amount of the licence fee that is spent in Scotland has fallen on last year, and it remains way behind Wales and Northern Ireland. 68 per cent, just over 68 per cent, is spent in Scotland, and that compares to 92.3 per cent in Wales and 88 per cent in Northern Ireland. Given that the issue comes up repeatedly when the BBC come before the committee, why is the situation not improving? Thank you very much, convener. In fact, the situation is improving. In 2015-16, the percentage of the licence fee that is spent in Scotland was 65.9 per cent. In 2017-18, it will be 68.8 per cent, and in the year that we are in, which is 18.19, it will be 76.7 per cent. When the new BBC channel transmits for a whole year, it will be nudging towards 80 per cent. The reason why there has been a network drop in TV spend in 2017-18 is largely due to delayed transmissions of two programmes, or deal by innocence, which you will remember was due to go out at Christmas, was delayed as the lead cast was recast and is transmitted in Easter, and still game, where we didn't have as many episodes within the calendar year as was scheduled. But our calculation is that over the three years that the DG promised till April 2019, the BBC will spend an annual average of £20 million in Scotland by the end of March 2019. It may be useful to hand over to Dinalda to give you an illustration of the kind of programmes that we are making. That might be useful. However, I would rather stay on this point if you don't mind, because it is striking the difference between Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to repeat the figure 68.8 per cent for Scotland compared to 92.3 per cent for Wales. I can answer that very clearly. There is no real comparison between Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Wales has been chosen by the BBC as a federal centre for drama, so you will know programmes like Casualty, Dr Who and Sherlock are now all produced out of Cardiff. Those programmes are not portrayal programmes about Wales. They are regular programmes, standards that the BBC has made for many years, and the BBC chose to establish a major drama production centre in Cardiff, whereas before they were made elsewhere. That is why Wales has got a disproportionate amount of spend. Northern Ireland is totally different. Northern Ireland is a much smaller area than Scotland, but it still is obliged to make local news programmes and current affairs, and those programmes cost roughly the same whatever size of the population. Therefore, it is quite natural that, in a small area, their percentage of spend would be higher. May I just say my own personal opinion about this? I do not believe that the BBC should end up trying to invest or put on the screen 100 per cent of the licence fee in a form of quota. I believe that we are progressing towards what will probably be around 80 per cent, but I think that the people in Scotland would appreciate big international programmes like the BBC World Service, the Commonwealth Games, the European Athletic Championships, Blue Planet. None of those things count in the funny way that all those hours are calculated, even if, as in the case of the athletics, the European Championship, half of them were produced in Scotland. We have to allow for certain, if you like, central major programmes to be funded throughout the UK, and that includes Scottish participation. Secondly, this is a creative business, and it is very important to give the commissioners some headroom so that they can commission the best ideas, dramas and comedies from wherever they come. Having said that, I think that we are all pleased to develop the percentage and increase the investment in Scotland, as I announced in my opening statement. In the end, what we all really want is a larger, sustainable, indigenous creative industry of television production in Scotland. Later on, in this interchange, I think that we should come back to that and the ways to do it, because we are all really working in the same direction. I am really surprised by what you said at the opening of your remarks there, Mr Morrison, where you said that the reason for the high spend in Wales was returning network dramas, because, of course, the committee and the screen sector leadership group, and just about every major commentator in Scotland, has commented on the fact that there is the lack of returning high-quality drama that is pushing the spend down in Scotland. I was surprised that you are using that as a justification for the figures when, in fact, the reason why the figures in Scotland are poor is because we do not have those kind of productions here in Scotland and we should have those kind of productions here in Scotland.  The only point that I was making was that if you take three bankers, which are Casualty, Sherlock and Dr Hoot, and you put them in one place, they could actually be made anywhere because they are not particularly local to Wales, then you will get high numbers. It should be our objective to find dramas, like Northern Ireland did with Line of Duty, to find dramas that are returning, as Shetland, for example, is about to go into its fifth series. It should be our objective, and I am sure that it is our drama commissioner's objective, to find long-running returning series. That is the gold dust of all television commissioning. One of the things that our inquiry into the screen sector found is that returnable dramas in terms of the creative economy and employment creates many jobs. Obviously, you have an obligation in your charter to develop the creative economies of the nations. I thought that that was quite interesting in terms of the BBC head count as a shade of the total population of that nation. In Scotland, the head count is exactly the same as Wales, but it is a lower percentage of the population. In terms of the population of Scotland, a much lower percentage is employed by the BBC in Scotland than Wales. What I was explaining in my introduction is that the BBC in Scotland is adding 270 new posts. That is a very large percentage of the existing head count and will increase it quite dramatically. The reason why Wales, as I explained earlier, has a disproportionate number is that it has a very large UK-based drama centre, which requires a lot of people working on those programmes. I am perfectly happy to share with you the objective of finding long-running successful dramas and comedies for Scotland, from Scotland to the UK network. That is what we are all keen to do. In fact, there has been a growth of drama coming out of BBC Scotland over the last three or four years. Your job on the BBC board would be to keep pushing for more spend in Scotland, not justifying the disparity that you are doing just now. As you can imagine, I am quite a pushy person. Scotland, in an overall context, which is actually very challenging. As you know, the UK Government has transferred to the BBC the responsibility for the over 75s free licences. If that concession continued, that would take up 20 per cent of the BBC's licence fee. I cannot really comment on that because we are going to go into a public consultation on it and then the board will discuss it. However, in those circumstances of this overall context, the fact is that Scotland has received over the last three years an extra £40 million a year when other nations and regions have had to cut their resources. However, our percentage of the licence fee spent has gone down and we raise considerably more licence fee than we do in Wales. No, it has only gone down, as I explained, through timing in this year of 2017-18. It went up from 65.9 per cent in 2015-16 to 72.4 per cent in 2016-17, 68.8 per cent in 2017-18 and forecast to be 76.7 per cent in 2018-19. We will be able to talk to you about that when we meet next year. Thank you, convener. I would like to focus on BBC news and current affairs output at first and a couple of specific instances that I think indicate a wider issue. News Night earlier this year ran a package from the Institute of Economic Affairs to remember their staff advocating the privatisation of the NHS. The IEA is one of the least transparent think tanks in Europe. They are registered as an education charity, but there is a lot of deep skepticism about that. We do know that they are funded by big tobacco companies, for example, who advocate against public health measures and clearly have a vested interest in policies related to healthcare. We know that the head of the IEA gave £32,000 to the now Secretary of State for Health in the UK Government. His head of health policy claimed that all doctors are communists. They were allowed to run a package through the BBC advocating for the privatisation of the NHS. There is no donor transparency at the IEA. Why was the BBC giving them a platform to do this? I did not see that item. If you wish, I could examine that item and write back to you as to the circumstances. That would be helpful, but I want to stick with the issue now, because it is indicative of a wider issue. I would like you to explain to me—perhaps I would be able to—why does the BBC offer platforms to organisations who have no donor transparency but for which, in this case, there is clear suspicion that private healthcare companies who have a vested interest in what the package was advocating are, in fact, funding the organisation that was given the platform. What are the BBC's rules around those that it has on, either as guests or, in this case, as advocates, when there is no transparency behind who funds them? As I said, I have not seen that item, so I cannot comment on that individual item. In general, the BBC has a very long-standing robust process for ensuring impartiality and balance, particularly in news and current affairs. We have a very rigorous system if anything comes up that goes outside those rules. I am asking you to explain to me why organisations who have no transparency behind their financial arrangements are allowed on to the BBC to comment on issues of public policy clearly related to the organisations that are widely believed to be funding them. Ross, I did not see that item. We are not talking about the specific item. No, I do not want to comment on the general, because I have not seen that particular item. When that case can ask Anne to comment on the general issue. The editorial guidelines around selection of guests are an area that we can deal with in more detail. I am afraid that I am not able to comment on this specific. What I would say is that our job in bringing organisations on and putting their views to challenge is an important part of what we do. I do not agree that we invite organisations on to our news programmes to be given a platform. They are brought on to our programmes for their views to be challenged, to be interviewed and for what they are advocating to be brought out. If there is a specific complaint where the context of those views is felt not to be sufficiently clear and being made clear to our audience and that challenge seems in some way to be inappropriate, we have channels to enable people to raise complaints about that and we will consider that properly. Before it gets to the complaint process, what I am asking again is why does the BBC, as a general rule, allow organisations like the IEA, like the Taxpayers Alliance, which is not a membership organisation that represents taxpayers, just a company owned by two guys? Why are those organisations, who have no transparency behind their financial arrangements, allowed to comment on issues of public policy related clearly to those who are believed widely to be funding them? Our job is to enable a range of views to be put forward and for those views to be challenged through our journalism. As I say, the very specific point that you raised, we can look at that and reply on that point. It is not an issue that has been raised with me before, but my clear understanding of what we seek to do in our journalism is to challenge, not to provide platform. I do not regard that as a satisfying answer, but I do not think that we are going to get any further. To move on to a related issue, but not around financing, you will be aware of the controversy around the invitation of the white nationalist, Steve Bannon, to a BBC-EBU event that the First Minister has withdrawn from. At what point do you have to balance out what you would regard as public interest of challenging views, which I accept that those arguments have been rehearsed, with views that are simply beyond the pale of acceptable public debate? No matter how wide you try to have the spectrum for acceptable public debate, the First Minister said that the BBC's response to her described Mr Bannon as a powerful and influential figure promoting an anti-elique movement. He promotes a pro-white movement, and he is a white nationalist. At what point is someone beyond the pale? You would not have someone who would advocate Holocaust denial. Steve Bannon has associated with Holocaust deniers. Where does the line get drawn? First of all, Mr Greer, we respect the First Minister's decision not to participate in the news exchange conference. It was reported in the press that BBC Scotland had invited Steve Bannon. That is not the case. The conferences that you rightly pointed out is an EU broadcasting union conference, and the BBC is a member. There is a committee of news exchange that extends invitations to a variety of speakers and panellists. It was decided that Steve Bannon, as we know, was an adviser to the president of the United States. It is really important in a conference that is absolutely about journalism that we go to the heart of our journalism and our journalistic practice, which is about holding people to account, which is about interrogating, which is about scrutiny. It was felt by the committee who invited Steve Bannon that it was right to do just that, and that is why he will be there. Do you recognise the concern about that, not just on Mr Bannon's history as a white nationalist, but the long history of the platforming of those of extreme far-right views, under the guise of challenging them for those views, which has resulted in the absolute opposite? We have a solid century's worth of evidence of that being the case. I recognise the concern, but, again, it is not our intention in the BBC to offer platforms to people who have particularly extreme views. It is about holding them to account, interrogating, scrutinising and explaining to others what they are about. That is not the game that they play, and I think that you are being played in this case. I am sorry, but I just wanted to ask a supplementary on that point. Right, it will have to be very quick. It was just to say that, is it not the case that Nick Griffin's appearance on question time ultimately led to the effective destruction of that political party by exposing his ludicrous views to the rest of the United Kingdom, who perhaps were not directly aware of them, and the party went into a precipitous decline as a result of that? I am not sure whether that was a question or not. I think that I should like to move on to Annabelle Ewing now. On the subject of BBC Alibah, Mr Morrison referred to that in his introduction to say that there is going to be a new weekend news programme or plans of some description. There will be additional 100 hours—I do not know if that 100 hours over what period. I do not know if that is a one-off 100 hours. Obviously, in terms of the report that we have before us, we can see that, in fact, over the past year, in terms of the number of hours, there has been an overall decrease in genres such as drama, comedy, entertainment, music and art of 8.6 per cent reduction in hours over the past year. As far as children programmes or related programmes, there has been a reduction over that period of 8.6 per cent. Perhaps we could hear why that is. Secondly, if the plans that Mr Morrison referred to are just bringing you back to where you were, it seems that that is quite a considerable drop in terms of those particular jobs. I am going to ask Dan Alda to talk more closely about BBC Alibah, but I just wanted to say that over the past three years, we have increased our investment in BBC Alibah from £5.5 million a year to this year, which is not in your current brief because we are looking at last year. Last year, we spent £7.9 million and this year, we are in, we are going to spend £9.1 million. I recognise the two things that you referred to, which are the weekend news and the extra hours of programming, and particularly children. Dan Alda, do you want to elaborate on that? Yes. I think that what you are seeing there is a fluctuation in terms of the numbers of repeats of programmes in these genres that you identify. In any given year, you will have a fluctuation in the numbers of programmes in these areas that are transmitted on BBC Alibah. As Steve has just said, we have continued to increase our investment in BBC Alibah. We did, in fact, introduce weekend news on television and, indeed, on Radio Nigel on Saturdays and Sundays to coincide with the BBC Alibah's 10th anniversary in September. I am delighted to say that we are working very hard to ensure that, as I said when I appeared here over a year ago, that we would do everything in our power to try and ensure that there was read-across from the new investment into BBC Alibah in the shape of what I intended, which is another 100 hours. Margaret Mayden-Murray, who heads up to BBC Alibah. I can just clarify so I have to interrupt, but if we use terms of 100 hours, what does that actually mean in practice? What 100 hours means? Is it a week, a month, a year? Broadly speaking, it might have more hours than one week than another. Over what period? Essentially, over a year. 100 hours over a year, so that is four days in a bit over a year. Is that right? I have got my arithmetic. Two hours a week. Okay. Sorry, please continue. Just to put it in some sort of context. Well, it is significantly increasing the amount of origination on BBC Alibah, which has been something that has been a worry and a cause of concern for the galaxy speaking audience who want to see more originated programmes as opposed to repeats. However, we have also been working very hard with others across the BBC to extend the value of what we do elsewhere. With our children's department, for example, which is based on software, we have just recently, again, to coincide with the 10th anniversary, introduced new children's programmes, new originations, which will come up in the figures next year. They are not there yet. However, we are looking at roughly 60 hours a year of additional children's originations and then, over and above that, some reversioning in that area. It has also been a strategic ambition for BBC Alibah to concentrate on children and young people, given the growth of the number of speakers in that area. Obviously, in terms of the reference that Mr Morrison made to the overall budget increase, we have not yet seen the figures for it over the last year of some £2 million or so. Obviously, that represents, I would imagine, possibly around a couple of years' salary for some of the BBC's highest-paid presenters and executives, but to be that as it may, I am just concerned about the potential impacts on the screen sector in Scotland and all the excellent potential technicians and so forth, all the production team. I mean, what analysis does the BBC in Scotland carry out in terms of making decisions about outputs and so forth? In this instance, we are talking about BBC Alibah and, at the same time, the potential impacts on the screen sector in Scotland. Currently, for BBC Alibah and, indeed, for the new Scotland channel, we are working with the new Scotland channel. We are running about 75 different companies. I think that that will ensure a lot of job creation in the market over and above the job creation that Steve mentioned in terms of what we do within the BBC, but also for BBC Alibah. BBC Alibah commissions about 75 per cent, sometimes more than that, of its output from independent production companies. Aside from the spend on the actual programmes, it is, again, the multiplier effect. For every pound, that translates into at least £2 of value. I think that the investment is significant. I think that we are encouraging skills, new—we have lots of training schemes. Aside from the NFTS, which Steve mentioned, we have also got apprentices, we have journalism trainees, we have recruited about 51 new journalism positions of the 80 that we have to recruit for the new service, for the new nine o'clock news. One of the first things that I was very fortunate to do when I was appointed was that I was taken by Margaret Mary Murray to Inverness and Sky. In Sky, they were making in the Gaelic speaking further education college the Gaelic drama Bannon, which has actually been very successful. For the size of that channel, it was quite a very significant undertaking, much more expensive than you would expect. We hear what you say today, and the proof will be in the pudding. Again, we look forward to seeing where we are next year. You talk about being ambitious and bold. We have already heard that there are a number of occasions in which there seems to be a decrease in some areas, and especially when we are looking at the local content, there has been a decrease in that. Can I ask why that has been prioritised in that way? The local spend for this year is £0.9 million down from 2016-17 in 2017-18. In 2016-17, the figures benefited from two series of two doors down, which transmitted in the financial year compared to one series in 2017-18. The cost of comedy is such that not having a series of comedy would easily take up that kind of sum of money. In addition, the transmission of still game series 8 crossed the two financial years, with two episodes transmitting in the 2018-19 financial year, which is not the year that you are referring to, but it is just an accident of timing and the availability of talent that just pushed two episodes out of one financial year into another. There is no intent here to reduce the local spend quite the opposite. You talk about the availability of talent. I think that one of the biggest issues that the BBC has faced of late has been the gender pay gap. That has rocked the BBC, shocked the community at large, and it has damaged the reputation of the BBC. Can I ask how BBC Scotland is tackling that issue to ensure that we here in Scotland are seen as managing that crisis that you now face? I ask both Anne and Dinalda to respond to this, because they both have very strong responsibilities in this area. In terms of the gender pay gap overall, what we reported in the financial year that we are looking at here is the reduction in the gender pay gap across the whole of the BBC from 9.3 to 7.6, which is not where we want to be. We are working to drive that down further, but it represents some good progress in the year. The gender pay gap in Scotland was a bit lower when we reported in the previous year. We do not collect an audit and take the gender pay gap right down in every part of the organisation because it is a statutory reporting mechanic at a point in time. However, the gender pay gap in Scotland was a bit lower than the overall BBC one, based on our internal estimates, and it has similarly come down over the year. That is the position on the gender pay gap. A lot of the gender pay gap, the vast majority of it, like many organisations, comes through from structural issues. By that, there are two big drivers. One is that there is an imbalance of women still in senior leadership. Overall, representation of women in the BBC is about 48 per cent, but representation in senior leadership groups is lower at 42 or 43. The second structural issue is about not enough women in some of the higher-paid jobs, in particular in STEM-based technology jobs. We have that challenge along with everybody else. One of the things that I think is very encouraging about some of the new jobs in Scotland is the jobs that Steve referred to at the start of the session. Toward 90 of those are in technology, which is great because that is part of the BBC that is growing in new technologies, in digital technologies. Something like 40 per cent of those roles that have been recruited so far have been to women, which is a really good feeder improvement. The BBC is working very hard on all issues of driving the gender pay gap. That structural issue about what we need to do to encourage our women to progress and to move through the organisation into more senior roles and into those areas of the BBC where they are underrepresented, in some cases where they are higher-paid, was really at the heart of the career progression study that Donalda led here from Scotland, but on behalf of the whole of the BBC. That was one of five studies that we did with our staff consulting widely about barriers to progress. We have completed similar studies around disability, which was published earlier this week, which I led. Social inclusion led by my colleague Alan Davie, who runs Radio 3. BME led by Tim Davie, who is responsible for BBC studios on the main board with me and also LGBT, which we looked at. I think that, pertinent to your question, the most important is the work undertaken very successfully by Donalda. I don't know if you'd like to talk about that and maybe some of the local initiatives in Scotland on progression. As Alan said, I undertook that piece of work on behalf of the BBC. I consulted widely across the BBC, not just within this country but around the world. We came up with 33 recommendations loosely falling under three themes, one that was how we support career progression. How we do that, we had to identify in the first instance why there was such attrition at particular levels or at times in people's careers. Usually it would be around when women were having children and leaving for maternity leave and then either not returning or indeed not applying for senior leadership positions. We are also recommending that leadership training and management training are offered at every level. The other theme was about flexibility, flexible working and how we wanted to offer flexible working not just to women but to men as well and to make it the default position across the BBC. Then there is also something around recruitment. On that, we have a particular opportunity in Scotland now, I believe, to experiment and pilot in terms of how we go about recruiting. With colleagues elsewhere in the BBC who are also looking at this, we have undertaken with all those new positions to increase our targets in terms of all the protected characteristics that are referred to there but particularly as far as gender balance is concerned. So far in our news recruitment, we have 52 per cent of women appointed to the roles. Somebody did ask me the question recently, were we in some way in danger of harming quality or recruiting low-right people if we were making those kinds of interventions? I just say that this is absolutely within all kinds of quality legislation adhering to that but also that we are sourcing excellent women who will be brilliant in the jobs that they have been appointed to. You have identified that you are tackling that issue and you have been late to the table in some respects in comparison with some other organisations and structures around. You are learning from other organisations what you can achieve and how you can progress that. Can I ask how will that eventually be audited and scrutinised to ensure that we will see a trait coming through? It is not just a blip in the system or you have attempted to support some mechanism to enhance it for a short time space? We have already set our targets for 2020. I think that there are a few levels. First of all, the statutory pay gap is published annually and is audited, so that is a hard thing. Secondly, our disclosure of the highest paid people from the licence fee is another measure that is monitored and we can speak more about that if that is helpful. In addition, the executive board will have specific recommendations for each of the studies and a consolidated view of them, so that we can monitor on a regular basis progress against those actions, and the BBC board can take additional insurance on that as needs be. Ultimately, the measure will be that the targets that we have set for representation are achieved. I think that we would all be curious to know how many women in BBC Scotland are paid less than their male counterparts for doing effectively the same job across the BBCs at home. What is the scale of the problem in terms of the actual pay gap at BBC Scotland? The gender pay gap in BBC Scotland is around 7.4 per cent. Yes, but we are talking about individual people's salaries. How many women are affected by that? The position in terms of looking at pay and questions of equal pay, which is, of course, different from the gender pay gap, which is at the heart of your question, as I understand it. We have undertaken fundamental reform of the way in which we manage pay in the BBC. I have listened to that and I think that is all positive although it should be speeded up. I am asking the question, do you not know how many women are affected at the moment as we speak at BBC Scotland? I can tell you how many women have outstanding questions with us about their pay, which we have not yet worked through. At the moment, we have 12 women in BBC Scotland who have asked us to look at their pay in a way that we are seeking. Our mechanic with this is that we audit, we check, we look. If we find issues, we correct them. That is at the heart of the reform of our pay and conditions that we have undertaken. In addition to that, anybody across the BBC, men and women, can raise questions about their pay, name comparators, and ask us to look at those. We have had very many queries come up across the whole of the BBC about that. The vast majority of them are very straightforward, please check my pay. Some of them are very much more serious questions of equal pay, which date back over many years, as everyone will be aware. We deal with those questions as they come up and seek to resolve them. At the end of last week—I look at progress on cases every week in an effort to progress and speed up—I want those cases dealt with as quickly as possible just as everyone else does. When I looked at those figures at the end of last week, there were 12 people in Scotland. I believe that they are all women who have asked us to look at their pay and look at it through that informal resolution stage. I do not know whether some of those will result in pay increases either forwards or backwards until that work is complete. There are four women in Scotland who have asked us to move on to the more formal grieving stage where there is an independent person sitting along the BBC case manager from outside of the division looking at the case. That does not answer your question, because I do not know the outcome of those cases, but those are the cases where the question has been raised right now. Okay, thank you for that. We will wait and see what happens. Obviously, it is a shame that the BBC has taken so long to deal with the muddle that has been created. Thank you. Just to clarify, there are 16 in all. There are under review at the moment. Okay, thanks very much. Jamie Greene. At different stages. I know that you want to move through the agenda, but just to be clear, when we are speaking about informal resolution, we are not talking about something that lacks rigor. That is a serious piece of work with HR professionals and legal advice taken where needed to consider the issues carefully. However, the question is framed. Then, when it moves on to a formal stage, that is the BBC's internal formal grievance policy, where there is also an independent person brought in to look at the questions raised. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Jamie Greene. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. Can I start, first of all, by saying that I think that the value for money that UK audiences get from the licence fee is tremendous? I think that that is said enough. I subscribe to a whole manner of commercial content providers, Netflix, Sky, Virgin, etc. I think that £150 for the wide breadth of content that we get is excellent value. However, that being said, Ofcom and others have criticised the BBC for its inability to reach out to new younger audiences. In fact, one in eight young people in the UK access no BBC content whatsoever, yet presumably are still liable for their share of the licence fee. Now, I appreciate there have been developments for BBC Three. I appreciate there is a targeted push with new technical developments such as the Sounds app, but these in isolation do not address fundamental problem or the existential problem that BBC has, is that younger audiences are shifting to commercial content providers. What are you doing to address that? The main board was the first sort of organisation because we get monthly audience reports to begin to examine and we announced in our annual report that, as you say, this was now one of the biggest issues that we were considering and working out how to correct. The first thing is, we agree with you, we think that dropping off of young viewers is a very important challenge to the future of the BBC. Whilst one says that, the BBC is actually the first media organisation that gets the most time spent by young viewers, so we are losing viewers, but we are still retaining viewers. Last week, we took the Scotland Committee to Dundee, and after the committee, we had an audience engagement session with about 25, 18 to 34-year-olds asking them why they were not watching the BBC. What turned out was that they were watching certain individual programmes that either they had forgotten or had absorbed and liked, but maybe were not necessarily watching them on a BBC screen, so they might be watching them on a Netflix screen or a social media screen. There is a question of attribution involved here, where some people do not know that they are actually watching. Presum that that would be a BBC worldwide content that is sold on a commercial basis, so it is not really part of the public sector delivery? No, it is public service programmes that have been transmitted, but are then transmitted on another screen. My view is that we have to take quite a bold view of this, and the board has discussed what are the options available to us to capture more younger viewers. If there are basically two categories of programmes that are affected, there are the mass popular programmes that have a large quotient of young people within them, which are effectively on BBC One, and there are targeted programmes that are designed for young people with smaller audiences but get through to that age group. At the moment, they are largely seen online, so what we have to do is to examine the relationship between our television service and our online service to see how we can make more famous these programmes so that they are caught by younger viewers. For example, Killing Eve, which was a BBC Three programme, premiered on BBC One on a Saturday night and created a sufficient degree of fame that it got a huge response from people wanting to see it on the iPlayer, so we have tasked our executive, including our marketing and our content and our audience management, to come up with options as to how we could address this problem and garner more young viewers. Annabelle McLean I think that you raise a question that we consider all the time and there is a relentless focus on it. I think that it is important to set it in an overall context in that 75% of young people that we speak to support the BBC's mission and 70% of them believe that we do it effectively, so there is a great deal of support for the BBC amongst younger audiences still. We are, as Steve said, the largest media provider for young adults still, so for 16 to 34, they are still taking 8 hours a week from the BBC and that is well ahead of the next one, and nine in ten young people visit BBC online in a given month. The other thing that is very interesting, and we picked this up through qualitative discussions such as the session that Steve just referred to, is when something happens, young people still come to the BBC for their news to feel confident about it, so trust scores for the young for the BBC are well above 50% versus low single digits, for example, for Facebook. But our view of it is that there isn't a single answer to it. We have to work on everything and think about youth, so that's casting, that's tone of voice, that's how we manage through the schedule breaks, how we reach out to unpeople, the tone of our programming. At the heart of it is also using BBC online services and the signing mechanic and the opportunity to personalise and direct a material that we think is going to be right for audiences from the whole of the BBC's catalogue in a very, very focused way. We now have 33.5 million signed-in users, very many of those are young people, and there's an opportunity there to mark, it's not a word we use a lot, but to mark it and to show them the breadth and the range that we have in the BBC and to encourage them to come to us. Alongside all of that, one of the other areas that we've redirected resources is into children's programming and to increase focus there and allow this balance between investment in linear and investment in digital services to encourage children to come to the BBC so that they know us and love us in the way that previous generations have. But overall, Jamie, if I may address you such, we're with you on this. We are looking very, very hard at providing more space and making that space more visible and more famous for young people. I appreciate your warm words and actions on that and I do wish you the best of luck as a competitive environment to operate in that audience. If I could move on to it, I think that one of my colleagues is going to talk about the new channel, but if I could open up that discussion by just asking a short question on it, one is a technical one, and that's why the BBC is taking the decision not to broadcast that channel fully in HD on digital terrestrial and chosen only to deliver it on an evening slot. I presume that it's due to availability of capacity on the transponder, the multiplexes, but is that because there is simply no more capacity available or because you've taken a financial decision that's too expensive to do so? That's the first question and I'll park that. The second perhaps is to Mr Morrison or to Steve, if I may. That's the fact that you come from an interesting background and that you've worked in the commercial production sector. Do you genuinely think that the introduction of a new BBC Scotland channel will create real opportunities in the independent production sector and so could you quantify what that may be? Should we start with a technical one? You are right to identify that spectrum is very expensive and to purchase it would have been, I believe, not particularly good value for money, given that the BBC will ultimately want to migrate to internet protocol transmissions. What we have secured, however, is HD on all the platforms, except free view between the hours of midday and seven o'clock, but it will transmit an HD in the evenings. That happened by way of CBBC forfeiting some of its HD spectrum in order to allow us to do that, for which we are very grateful. Surely, with the greatest respect, does that mean that datam audiences are forced to watch the programme in SD and evening audiences, the people who are working during the day, can enjoy it in HD? In a modern day age, when you are trying to compete, as we just discussed with commercial operators, do you really think that people are content with SD broadcasts on big screens these days? I think that there is a balance to be struck, isn't there? It also depends on the nature of the programming that is on. Striking a balance between investment in distribution across multiple platforms, which is very, very expensive, versus investment in content, is one of the judgments that we have had to make in looking at the setup of the due channel. The view that we took was that we wanted HD, but we wanted to do that where the affordability versus the audience, given what we are putting on versus investment in content works. That was the balance that we took. I think that it is pretty good. Of course, HD is available over IP during the day as well. I hope that you don't think that that means that nobody is going to watch during the day, so it doesn't matter. At all? No, I don't. Absolutely not. To be clear, it is 7 o'clock to midnight. It is in the main evening service other than when we wish to schedule first ministers' questions, for example, or sporting events. The other members need to ask questions, and our time is quite limited. Neil Findlay. If Neil Findlay would allow me, could I just answer Jamie's bigger question? Very quickly, please. You are right. I have launched four channels over the years, and launching a channel is very, very, very difficult because you have to get the public to be aware that that channel has been launched, which you shouldn't assume they are aware, and to know the button, the spot on the EPG, on whichever system they are watching television, and then they have to feel that it is a channel for them. Those are all big things. You are launching a new proposition. However, I think the progress so far suggests that the production community, which you mentioned, the independent community in Scotland have responded to this very well. Steve Carson, who is in charge of the overall commissioning team, has explained to us that they have engaged in programme commissions with 75 independent production companies. They have published programme tariffs, and there was a lot of debate at the beginning whether those programme tariffs would be high enough, and in fact the production community has responded very well to the commissioning briefs that were put out. Secondly, they are trying to include some higher-cost genres, which they won't be able to do all the time, but to include some drama and some comedy. In that, I think that partnerships and co-commissioning between that channel and other parts of the BBC or other co-producers will be very helpful, because we are now in the stage where, as you know, you can't really produce a drama without some form of co-production. Listening to your question, we are on it, and the guy running it is very confident in it, and he is presented to the Scotland Committee twice. We have seen the schedule develop, so I have great hopes for it, but we should not underestimate that we are launching a completely new channel into the ether, and we shouldn't imagine that a mass audience will suddenly turn up to it. It will have to build, and we will have to give it time to build. We need to move on. I am sorry, Mr Morrison, we need to move on. Neil Findlay, please. Thanks, and feel free to call me whatever you like. I answer too many things, occasionally leaving them in my name. Can I say that the new channel is going to broadcast? Is it five hours a day, seven until twelve? Yes. According to the information that we have, 50 per cent of the shows will be repeats or archive programmes. How long will the nine o'clock news programmes run for? One hour. Okay, so we have two and a half hours a day is going to be unique new programming because 50 per cent is going to be repeats, and hour of that is going to be the main news programme, and there's also going to be shorter news bulletins throughout the day, so maybe we could take another half hour of that. We're paying 32 million for one hour of new production a day. The fact happened, Neil, is that in the first phase of commissioning, 77 per cent of the programmes will be new. That is not necessarily going to be the same rate that is going to be the rate throughout the year. We're learning as we go. Over a piece, 50 per cent will be archived or repeated programmes. I'm correct in my analysis that over the longer term, it will be one hour of new production a day. No. According to that, if it's five hours a day, half of it's repeats. No, what I'm saying is that was the rule or the term that Ofcom laid down. What we found in the beginning through various means is that we are commissioning more than 50 per cent of originated hours. It may turn out that we end up with more. I don't want to say what that number will be because we don't know, but it may be that it is considerably more than 50 per cent. We have to see how the money and the programmes and how everything beds down. According to the contract, that's the minimum. That's what you're describing. It also funds the new sour, so you have to take the new sour out of that, but there will be 900 hours of new content a year on that new service. According to what we have and the information that we have, that will result, that will be one hour a day. If you took the archived and the repeated programmes and put them on your online service, would that not free up more money for more original material? It's a question of how much can you reasonably spend on this new channel. Don't forget, as I said at the beginning, we're the only country where we have two national channels. Nobody else in the BBC in any other part of the UK actually does this, so we're exploring it as we go. There would be little point in taking the archived programmes, and we do actually have archived programmes on the iPlayer, but there would be little point in taking all the archived programmes, some of which a lot of people want to see off that channel if that meant that we couldn't afford to pay the programme tariffs for the original programme, and we ended up with a lot more quantity and a lot less quality. So, when you launch a new channel, it is quite normal to have that kind of balance that you described. If you watch some of the smaller channels that are available in the digital sphere, you will notice that at nine o'clock there is an hour of new original programming, and around those hours, those peak programmes, there are other kinds of programmes. Some might be acquisition, some might be things you've seen before. This channel is actually better set up financially than virtually any digital channel in the rest of the UK, so therefore the balance of original to acquired or archived will be monitored very closely. As I say, at the moment, the original programme rate is much higher than the 50 per cent. I think that the issue ultimately comes down to the quality of what we're going to be watching and the lessons that were learned from STV2, where at times nobody was watching any of the programmes because, frankly, they were repeats of repeats of repeats. What we don't want with this is that we become Dave and that we're watching the Dave channel, where you watch Top Gear 24 hours a day, if you're so minded. What we don't want to be watching is the singing kettle 24 hours a day. From what I've seen of the schedule, this will not be a repeat channel, this will be an originated channel. The question is how you use your £32 million wisely to get an audience and to show them original material alongside material that you know they already like. We have an opportunity now to do things that we've never done before, like experiment, and in the nether regions of the schedule, I think it's fair to say that we're trying to target a younger audience, not with the earlier hours, so there will be a lot of new and innovative and possibly some risky stuff at that end of the schedule. I'm confident that it will offer something for everybody. It does seem quite a gamble given that young people are watching less television and we want this to succeed. Mr Morrison, as I've said before, we've conducted a long running inquiry into the screen sector in Scotland. I think that it's fairly universal that everybody that we spoke to in the industry said that there's not enough money going into this channel. The questions from Neil Findlay and your responses seem to suggest that. Some of the programmes that are going to be made, there's going to be no high-end drama on the channel, and that's clearly for financial reasons. What have you done in your position as representing Scotland on the board of the BBC? What have you done to argue for more money for that channel? Number one, we have argued with our executive, and one of the most important members of that executive is sitting on my right, that the channel should have a good launch and it should have adequate funds to have that launch, which I'm happy to say it has. Number two, let me finish the point. You asked me what I'm doing. Number one, the network of the BBC, both financially and in collaboration on programmes, some of which will be co-commissioned by the channel and by the network, are being extremely supportive in helping us to get programmes that otherwise the channel on its own could not afford. Now, I can't say exactly what those are, because that hopefully will be a pleasant surprise to the viewer, and they haven't yet been announced. But I can tell you there will be drama on this channel, which you said there wouldn't be. I didn't say there wouldn't be. I said high-end dramas. There will be high-end dramas on this channel. What about it? Will it be original drama? It will be original drama. And where will it fall in the tariffs, in terms of the tariffs for drama? It will be much more expensive than the normal tariff, and we will have to find partners. This is a very complex— Has it been commissioned? Sorry. I don't want to go into too much detail. What I'm saying is— I'm just asking whether yes or no has it been commissioned? No. Just let me answer the thing. We have persuaded our network colleagues to help us financially and co-commissioning programmes to give this channel the best lift-off that it possibly can. We are all the time persuading colleagues, both on the board and on the executive, to regard it as a priority to support this channel, which they are all doing. But there isn't any more money. I'll move on to Kenneth Gibson. Thank you very much. That's no doubt why it's been delayed a few months. I think that one of the things that concerns the public is the colossal salaries that people in the BBC, from football pundits to radio 2 presenters, have been paid. Clearly, one of the ways in which they are reducing the average male salary in their further gender gap was by replacing some people in the—like Chris Evans, for example—with females who are earning a lot less money, such as Zoe Ball. If we go into the off-com report that was published on 25 October, the report concluded that viewers in Scotland watch 13 per cent more BBC TV than the UK average, but only 52 per cent of people in Scotland have a favourable overall impression of the BBC compared to 64 per cent of all UK adults. I'm just wondering why there is a significant difference and how will the channel close that gap, this new channel? Can I divide that into two? Your first question was talking about pay, so can I ask Anne to comment on what's happening to our pay policy in the BBC, and then your second question was how can we deal with the portrayal and representation that encourages more viewers to watch the BBC and to feel good about watching the BBC? The point is that 13 per cent more people in Scotland are watching the BBC, but they've got a lower opinion of it, so how do you try to close that gap in Scotland? There's a combination of diagnoses around that. In many ways, I do hope that the channel will go some way to address it. That is one of the main and the entertaining reasons for creating it. I also think to have an hour-long news bulletin at the heart of the schedule for audiences in Scotland, I would hope will improve these general impression figures that we're talking about. It has long been a case that's been made by many people that an hour-long news bulletin was wanted, was required, and I think that there is something also about portrayal and representation and relevance among audiences in Scotland. It's a big country, we've got a sizable population and it's diverse. I think that we have an opportunity now to address that diverse, that geographic diversity, cultural diversity, in a way that we've not really hitherto had. It is also about then working very closely with network colleagues to ensure that BBC One in Scotland and BBC Two in Scotland are as strong as they possibly can be. We can't replicate what they do with this new channel. When we look at some of the drama that's been commissioned of late and some of the drama that's yet to appear in our screens, it is fair to say. I agree wholeheartedly with the convener that a returning drama would be fantastic. You could argue that Shetland is that, but what we would really want to see is something that was perhaps on a bit more frequently. When we do look at some of the stuff that has come through Scotland and some of it being produced by brilliant Indigenous companies, it is really heartening. I think that we have the way with all now to address some of that perception that exists there, as you rightly point out. We've just transmitted The Cry, which was made by a Scottish company Synchronicity, a co-production. We've got six by 45 minutes of a drama called Clic, which is aimed at younger audiences. We've got Shetland Five coming up, somebody said, and we've got a sixth series in development. We've got Trust Me, series two, which is again four by 60 minute drama based in Scotland, shot in Scotland. We've got another commission recently announced called The Nest, which is again six hours. These will all make a difference, I believe, just in terms of people feeling that they're seeing familiar surroundings, that they're hearing accents, which reflect their reality. I think it's really important to have that critical mass, as opposed to what I'm trying to say, not just on the new channel, but on the other channels too. An inlay recruitment of the journalists for the new nine, the new news hour, they are going all over Scotland to position reporters and other journalists in different parts of Scotland. Everybody is absolutely focused on what you just described, which is how do we make a channel that reflects modern Scotland and attracts viewers from all over Scotland because they see themselves or people like themselves on it? I know you're short of time, would you like me to answer very briefly on top pay? Viewers and listeners, when we survey expect us to have top talent on BBC programmes and they understand that we have to pay market rates for some of those people, what I think is helpful is we employ 25,000 to 30,000 on our presenters over the course of the year. The top talent list that is published, people paid more than £150,000 from the licence fee, represent 0.2 per cent of those individuals, 1.4 per cent of our overall spend, but the programmes that they present will appear on make-up 40 per cent of our overall viewing across radio and TV, so I think that gives you a sense of the job that they do. We have had a rigorous programme over recent years. It's spoken about in the annual report in the talent pay section of managing down the overall talent bill and the proportion of our talent that are paid at that highest level by bringing on more people, looking for more of a mix and, indeed, in many cases, managing down the cost of talent over time. Mr Morrison, you said at the beginning that in Wales there was a disproportionate amount of spend from the BBC. It's actually 92.3 per cent of what's raised on licence fee, but from your own figures, 350 per cent of what is raised on licence fee is spent in London, 48.9 per cent of the total, so do you agree that there should continue to be more programming made in other parts of the UK? For example, is there any reason why Scotland can't become the same kind of drama hub that produces Doctor Who, Sherlock or whatever, you know, casualty that we have in Canada? I think that we might have noticed it, but it's going to gather pace. There is an out-of-London policy within the BBC. We are now commissioning more programmes from out-of-London, establishing bases in different parts of the UK. Now, as it happened in Scotland, we established a factual base, so I think that the next step for the Scottish industry, in my personal opinion, is to try and work out a way to build a sustainable scripted base. So, as Donalda said, we have some very renowned drama companies in Scotland, but actually quite a small number. Therefore, in partnership with organisations like Creative Scotland and other partners, I think that it is a task to try and build up the scripted base, the indigenous scripted company base in Scotland, which because of the size of the projects would actually increase the size of the TV production industry quite dramatically. If you take my point. Scotland's share of BBC spend went from 10.3 to 9.1 per cent over the last year, whereas London's only went from 49.40 to 48.9. Having started such a policy, it literally takes years to establish a serious amount of production out of out-of-London bases.   I think that there is an opportunity. Now we see that Creative Scotland is changing its strategy from more of an arts council's strategy, independent talent strategy towards a more creative industry strategy, and more money has come in from the Scottish Government. I think that there is an opportunity together with Creative Scotland, together with other partners, to build up our scripted base, which would genuinely allow Scotland to get more serious drama contributions onto the screen. Now, as Denalda says, the number of drama series over the years has gone up, but I think there's quite a lot of mileage still to go. So I'm tending to agree with you, but I don't think it will happen by tomorrow. I think it will take two or three years to build this up. However, as I said right at the beginning, this year we're in, we'll see 76.7% of the licence fees spent in Scotland next year, when the channel running throughout the year will be nudging towards 80%. This is growing all the time. In the end, the quota system is not the answer. The answer is attracting the right kind of talented companies to work in Scotland and to present ideas that the network commissioners really want, so that we end up with more things on merit, and not just by quota. 8.8% of the licence fee you're spending in Scotland. No one's calling for a quota, is that that? I think that many people will be surprised that we have actually in this committee and predecessor committees been talking about lack of scripted drama from Scotland for quite a long time. I think that this committee has been very clear in its reports that the responsibilities with the commissioners not withstanding the pressure that we put on Creative Scotland, but the commissioners are responsible for the decisions that they make. Tavish Scott. First of all, I'll just emphasise the point that you made at the beginning about things like Blue Planet. I think that the BBC should push what you're doing a little more in Scotland. A lot of the questions that you've heard today are indicative of an inability to get your point across. Frankly, all of you need to do a bit more of that, about saying, why do the benefits of Blue Planet across Scotland? I mean, I would pay for the licence fee alone on that. If you didn't put match the day on in Shetland, there'd be outrage. In our household, never mind anywhere else. So, all the arguments you made at the start about spend and the importance of these UK productions right across the UK are really important. I think, occasionally, I think you should do controller live now and again and take viewers' questions. Eat the controller. Yeah, exactly. Eat the controller. You do that thing on the news channel where someone, a senior BBC executive, goes on and says, why did Farage appear on that package about the 700,000 people walking through London a few weeks ago? I mean, I may say, I thought you were wrong about that. It doesn't matter. At least a BBC executive had to answer that question. So, I think you need to, if I may say, to push your own agenda so that now there was questions like numbers are balanced by the fact that you produced all these programmes that we all want to watch. So, that's my, I'm going to get that off my chest because I get fed up listening to this argument every time we, the question I actually wanted to ask was about a documentary about your point about impartiality and Donald MacKinnon's made the very same point about impartiality. The BBC Scotland produced a documentary called Dark Side of Deary, which I don't know if you saw or not, but three things about it that I think were wrong. Firstly, it did not explain the rigorous inspection and transport which protect carves in transport. Secondly, the Scottish Government vets, inspect and monitor a system that wasn't explained on the documentary. And lastly, it used footage of something that happens in another part of the world but never said and instead implied that was going on in Scotland. That, for me, failed the test of impartiality to the documentary. I wonder if you've had a look at that and the BBC Scotland hold up its hands and say, right, we didn't quite get that right. Well, I'd like to give that one to Donalda because she knows a great deal about this programme. No, not at all and I know we have had correspondence on this particular programme in which I have defended quite robustly the journalism of the programme. You will probably know that a formal complaint has now been lodged with our Executive Complaints Unit and, as that process is still on-going, I would rather say nothing more about it until that they deliberate. Yeah, that's sub-stage, that'll be published against the termination published. And then if that isn't satisfactory, there is an option then to take it off. How many formal complaints does the BBC Scotland get in an average year? Quite not that many, right? We all complain but there's a difference between a formal complaint of the morning, which you heard this morning. It's fair to say. Mr Scott, very few. Which, again, says something about the robustness of our journalism. Thank you very much. We'll just wind up now. If I could just, before we do that, ask Donalda to pick up on the points that were made about high-end scripted being not yet commissioned for the new channel, but we're told that it would be commissioned at some point in the new channel. Could you tell me what tariff rate that's going to have? I can't because it will have to, as you probably rightly identify, it will have to be a cocktail of funding in order to achieve it. There is one commission of which I know, and there are on-going discussions about it, and I would absolutely regard it as high-end. So, does that mean that it's going to be between 650 and 1,000 an hour? Around that. It will be, right? When will you be announcing that? We're not intending to have that for launch, but possibly for an autumn launch. Finally, to go back to Neil Findlay's point about original content, you are putting an hour of news on at 9 o'clock. Mr Morrison made the point that most channels put on commissioned new content at 9 o'clock. Everyone I have spoken to in the industry says that that is a big mistake that you will not attract viewers with news at 9 o'clock at your peak time. Is there any possibility of that decision being changed? No. We have undertaken some qualities of focus group research ourselves. There is a body of opinion out there that says that they would value a news out at 9 o'clock as an alternative to what's on elsewhere, particularly among women and often parents with young children who would value their news at 9 o'clock. It's true to say that we don't want to be competing directly with dramas, which are an offer elsewhere. People will have the opportunity, obviously, to consume these dramas via catch-up or on-demand. We do think that—obviously, everything that we plan for this new channel has an element of risk to it. We don't know how it's going to work. Will we ever revise the decision when we might have to? But at this stage, the intention is not to do so. The look of the news from what I've seen of it will be quite different from a normal news bulletin. It will be more like a programme than a bulletin. Well, it's an hour, so it's hardly a bulletin. Thank you very much for coming to give evidence to us today. I'm going to go into private session now.


Think I wore too big of a jacket Let me know if you guys can see me. I know the Sun is or the sky. This clouds are bright behind me But I wanted some fresh air and I wanted to talk to you kids if anybody was around. I hope somebody's around I see one person. I think I did it on the jacket. So whoever's here. Hi, dude. It's Fran. How are you? Hi, Busy B. Ladies tell me is it too bright behind me? I didn't think about that till after I turned on My iPad. Hi, Tracy Hola Susanna. Hi Karen, Tanya. Hi Terry. I haven't seen you in a while. Yay, is it too bright behind me? I just wanted to be outside It's been it's bright What is it, Judas? It's bright. Do I hope I don't have to go inside It's beautiful. Okay, awesome. Now if it gets too bright or anything you guys let me know I thought it was pretty too, but then I didn't know how much of an effect It would have you know what? It's not that cold here. I don't know. Okay, thanks Thanks, honey pie It's not that cold here, but Steve and I were laying down have a little nappy poo Along with kitty dog. And you know how after you wake it from a nap You're always like 20 degrees colder than it really is I'm good, Judith. I'm really good. I'm looking let me show you guys who I'm gonna show you the rest of the sky. Let's see if it's It's like There goes my water It's like so beautiful out here. I don't need this big jacket. Oh Susan hi, Kath And you know, it's so funny. I'm sitting here. I'm talking really low and Steve's still asleep And he's at the other the other whole end of the building Tanya we're gonna talk about that in just a minute Which is because I was laying in bed and I was thinking about This whole owning scale thing You know what? I don't think it's gonna be for me Hi Debbie Everybody's snacking out of boredom Susan. I can guarantee you I must attack my oh, I gotta close the store. Hang on kids. Hang on Okay So we need to have a chat chat chat chat chat Hi Barbara. I'm so happy to see you Tanya gained two pounds. That's awesome That's awesome. I'm like so nervous about this conversation because I don't know what to do I know you guys will help me figure it out um For anybody, you know, let's just talk just for a minute case anybody strolls in if anybody new is here. Welcome. Welcome My name is Nita I'm playing DJ Nita right now because why the heck not Kathy we're up three. That's girl I am a white watcher. I am on the green program And I do not own a scale or I should say I did not own a scale never ever have I owned a scale I only weighed in at my weight watcher meetings on the same scale Just about I would say 99% of the time Maybe there was twice when I had to jump on one of the other scales. We have three scales in my center And I'm a little superstitious All right, so with this whole thing if Nita wanted to weigh in Nita had to buy a scale Why am I talking about myself in a third person? I couldn't tell you I don't know Um Karen right on Chica that's so awesome.  I had to buy some pajamas I don't know I figured I'm gonna be sitting around the house a lot in pajamas. I might as well have new cute ones, right? Okay, so I brought the scale home and I wasn't gonna get on it till this morning after I woke Could go to the bathroom all that good stuff um, hi Susan But I got on it last night like over and over again um It's it's this is why I haven't had a scale because I knew that Barbara I'll send them to my mom Uh, I knew that my my relationship with the scale would not be a good one And I was right because I have it as of right now. I have it in Oliver's bathroom Which is at the front of the house my bathroom is at the back of the house I put it in his bathroom because his bathroom is bigger Um, and he's not home right now. I am up five pounds now this is in two weeks so Uh, and Kathy I have no way to tell if how it is in relationship. Hi Esther Uh, because I've never I have no way to compare it because I was I wasn't able to go to my one My meeting and then my one at home Barbara, you know what? I just don't think I can have it in the house you guys and I know Somebody's gonna remember what I said. No, but then I weighed in again this morning, Judith um And I was down from just from last night maybe two pounds But like I'm saying is I keep getting on and getting off and uh, I know I'm up because I can feel it I can see it. I'm sure you guys can see it. Um And I have reasons to be up Uh, which I'll go into in a minute. But first I want to tackle the scale thing. I don't Think I am able to have a scale here. Hi Cheryl. Thank you so much. It's great to see you too Do you guys have your water? I'm getting down to the bottom Now I said what I was going to do is I was going to purchase the scale and then weigh in on friday and then have steve take it to the garage I don't Think I can have it on the premises. I just know myself and I don't want to do this to myself. I think I would rather Sorry, there's a little nap flying at my nostrils Good job on the water you guys. I'm sorry. You know what too I think it's stressed at this point is I just keep having breakouts after breakouts But Barbara, you know what? I am that girl and you guys know me You guys know me well enough by now If I want to get on that scale anything that's hidden for me, I'll find it Unless he takes it to work And takes it off our property. I will find it Um That's the great thing about Costco is I can return it if I want so I think I might keep it for a couple days And And see what happens. I just don't think it's a healthy thing for me to have myself You have to be okay. Barbara says you have to be able to handle the ups and downs to weigh often But I don't want to weigh often. See that's the thing. That's the weird thing. I'm probably not even making clear I don't want to which is why I have never owned scale But having it here and then walking in the bathroom and having to pass it to sit on the toilet It's like, oh, let's just stand on this Because apparently I have no self-control when it comes to it, which is why I've never had one So Judith, I think I am going to take it back Barbara. I could never weigh in every day Just I've only I haven't even had the scale 24 hours yet. I've had it for it. Let's see. What time I got it? What time is it now? Oh, my Fitbit my Garmin isn't on I think I have I don't even know what time it is right now. I'm the pathetic I don't know. I think I've maybe have had it for 24 hours So, okay, so that's that We'll revisit that. Let me come in and say hi and see what your guys's comments are real quick Judith and the Costco makes it so easy because they have all the colors They have a color for everyone and right now the the package I got yesterday Is a pair of shorts pair capris tank and long and the short sleeve. So Every part of your body is covered man. Dinka is sleeping. Whatever you want Make sure I said hi to everybody. I'm so glad you guys have your water Susan and Kathy, but uh, how do you guys weigh in every day? I mean Esther says I only weigh in when I wear the same jammies and only in the morning Every day Esther or just once a week. I mean, I have to have everything exact It's in my trunk of my car. I can get it out of the trunk of my car That's like the same time you said to me if I didn't have any any booze in the house Would I drive it if I wanted it when I drive and get it? Yes It is a whitewater scale Tanya. It's a whitewater scale Um, let me go back here for a second Karen says I weigh in Wednesdays at home so I can Rain myself rain myself in if I'm up before Saturday weigh in that's that's good Susan puts hers way under the bed And gets to that when I want away Make it first thing in the morning. Cool. Esther says I've tried to weigh in On weigh in day and that's how I know I'm three higher at home So, you know what? Here's the thing. I'm going to give props to myself For at least being honest with myself Uh I because we're all different and I just I just can't do it. I that's why I've never had a scale. Okay, so, uh, I'm up five pounds It's been two weeks since I've weighed in And here is where I go wrong When I wake up, it's a beautiful day, right? It's a beautiful day. I've been sleeping I haven't had time to think about what's going on in the big bad world And I do my norm and I go in and I have my breakfast and I track everything And then after you're spending the day kind of cooped up Trying to entertain your 10 year old even though I have to give him credit for he's been rocking my world For being home with me.  I can and Another interesting thing you guys since I've been home alone with Oliver so much. I've learned so much about him That's just really really kind of fun Um, but then by the end of the day I think after you know putting on like why am I even bothering I'm talking about myself. I'm not talking about anybody else Again when I wake up fresh, oh, it's a good day. It's a new day, you know, but by the end of the day, it's like, oh Why do I care? so Then I snack and I try to snack on my mandarin oranges and I do And then I try to snack on my apples and I do I even pull the asparagus out throw it in air for But by nine o'clock and when I'm making steve's lunch and he's still working and I'm putting cookies in his lunch It's like I I don't care All right, let's see what deb says. Let's go back here Maybe you're hoping on more Hoping for more of a loss ester I'm lost on that one. Love you. You're gonna have to explain it to me No, I'm deaf. I think I can feel that I'm not that much Barbara You know how I can feel it is in my walking when I walk I can tell Suzanne says I try not to weigh in every day, but I need to check it a couple of days before official weigh-in so I can deal with if it's creeping Oh, Susan, why aren't you getting out and walking? I mean, I know you have stuff that you have to do in the house I know but why don't give yourself a break girl get outside.  I have a collab coming up with mendy and a couple other gals So we went over to corriganville. You guys need to uh google it It's a it's an old movie set that is literally a quarter mile from our house And man Dingo was it beautiful there today. So we got a lot of good steps in over there. I have been getting my steps in But about nine o'clock I might be back on the stuff Esther I'm right now. I'm not going to give anybody a hard time for anything um Especially if it's diet coke and and you're self isolating Or whatever the terminology is in your area If if a diet coke or two or three It's the worst that you're doing my hats off to you friend because So steve and I we went to um So we went to corriganville And then we went and drove through chick-fil-a and ate there and then we went across the street to sprouts To get some lunch meat and some mandarins and some apples and then we went to walmart to get my yogurt Why did I start to tell you this? Shoot there was a reason I started to tell you this And completely What was I gonna say? It's it's just gone that fast. Oh, I know what I was gonna say That I could Grow back and wake up regretting Karen said give up diet coke for lent So my guilt keeps me by from buying it Those are great. Um like the smaller vans by me. It's not so stocked But like the bigger stores are and also they've all Implemented plans for you know, they have only a certain amount of people can come in they have senior times They've they've worked it out really well. It's just like normal town usa when we were out today Um, you know what barbra? We are not able we don't have the I don't know if I've ever told you guys this on here, but we're alive We don't have the uh walmart grocery pickup. It's not an opportunity or kathy. Do you guys have it? because they are also in california but Kathy's up north susan best story about this jacket. Let me show it to you This jacket Was in a bag of clothes donated Oh my gosh, I just saw myself in the reflection of my sliding glass door and scared the crap out of me Um, it was donated and a bag of clothes from an uh Another weight watcher member friend of mine For oliver and I tried it on and it fit and I kept it I think it's pretty cute too Debbie says I go to bed early when i'm being super snacky debbie during normal life And this is where it's getting me during normal life and oliver's in school And you know everything we go to bed between 8 30 and 9 But this whole thing is thrown our routine off Uh, let's see kathy says yes, but have never used it susan says yes But the location closest to me but a few miles away Okay, gotcha So yeah, we don't have that out here. I wonder why it's so prevalent back for everybody else because kathy and susan a lot of my um viewers Get all their groceries for from the store pickup Let's see kath says our school used Walmart pickup for our lunches and snacks and the counselor because they didn't have the food Really? They're gonna restock the shelves. I mean the problem isn't the food Then the store is not having it the problem is all the greedy people who are buying all of it Not leaving any on the shelves for the people who do need it as well Which i'm not even going to get into because I have said Early on that I feel like uh, a lot of us need to step away from the subject at hand Just so that we can get out of it. And so I just don't I'm not I don't want you guys to take me wrong. I'm not sitting here pretending. It's not going on But on my sweet little channel here. I can I can Choose not to talk about it now if somebody needs to talk about it. I don't know what to do Let's see, um Kathy says it's been crazy here Susanne says last night at 9 30. I had to go brush and floss my teeth to try and stay away from all the snacks We bought this week susanne right on. You know what? I'll brush and Floss my teeth 20 times a night I just I don't know. I never had this problem before Goes to disneyland and eats chicken breasts in lettuce while surrounded by goodies But this whole thing has taken a turn Thank you, susie. They're they're super beautiful. It was beautiful over at corganfield today too. It's just And I have a thing about the sky amazon has fresh delivery I don't need it. We have so much food here Um, we didn't even need the food we bought. Oh, you should see the strawberries we got today They're like this big. They're so fresh and so beautiful. I got some mandarin sumo's Susan same here when life is normal I'm the greatest weight watcher in my house I'm a pretty damn good weight watcher, but not right now. I'm just not because I thrive on routine and um Oh, hi kitty. I didn't see you. She's out walking in the rain I know you're uh anxious susie and I've been reading that and I just wish there was something I could do And that's the weird part is I'm not anxious Uh Maybe I'm not anxious because I'm eating maybe I should tell you to go eat some snacks Kath I went to walmart by work yesterday because I wanted a diet coke and there was almost nothing on the shelves wonder why that is Let's see it sprouts Okay in sprouts walmart Did I say if we went anywhere else today the only thing's not on the shelves with the toilet paper My poor mom is having trouble down in san diego getting toilet paper I was trying to find some with barbers out on amazon Uh, or even I try to overstock, you know overstock.com and they didn't have any either because she's like just find it And have them send it to me Susie, I'm not gonna say a word because you know my thoughts on that I'm not gonna say a word anyways I wonder why we get antibacterial um The tp but but steve went to the 19th story yesterday morning. Was it yesterday morning? He got four Six packs of tp. I didn't know kathy was coming down tomorrow susan. Nobody ever tells me anything Yeah, I don't know I don't know we've got tens and tens of food our freezer is full I mean And our and our stores have it so anyways, that's it Nothing's open Uh, I'm just a little irritated right now.  That's the other thing that's been going on here our wi-fi has been so bad Oliver cannot play his pence for and I can't be on my computers at the same time Maybe I am buffering because nobody's commenting What are you gonna do with the car kathy? I hope you guys were able to sell it or salvage it or something So it will shoot maybe I should check out then instead of you guys trying to see me But I promised you guys don't come in and let you know how it went after about the scale. I don't know Things let's see. I'll sit here for another come on. Oh good kathy. That's good news Susan my wi-fi like I said it's just been horrible plus I wonder if being outside is hurting things Dang, I wanted to sit and chit chat with you guys But I'm up. Um, I also I'm gonna try to get this in before I hang up because If nobody can see me it's falling on deaf ears, but I sat down with Steve And I told him we had an earthquake hit the guy below me See any of you guys must be buffering. So I'm gonna check out I haven't soothed. Can you see me? I don't know if I should stay Or should I stay or should I go now?  I have my iPad right here my phone right here You know, I tried to watch a couple movies with Steve and um, Oliver and I did my best, but I just okay So anyways, what I started to say is I told Steve. Thanks girls None here kathy my patio is above my neighbor's garage and he opened his garage door, but I just bet hard hard our deck Um, we're gonna pre-track Oh Tonya, I'm so sorry, but thanks for trying to hang in there love. I appreciate it. I appreciate all you guys more than you know I literally was laying in bed. I was like, I got to get up and talk to my girls So I'm I'm gonna just go because it's buffering for some and not everybody and I want us all to sit together and pow out Exactly Debbie. I wonder what would be the best time. Maybe I should just I don't know Everybody's home. I was gonna say maybe next week you guys Did you see those about and then I we were making a plan a double live together on instagram I said to her I said well, let me know what uh What your how your weekend plans are so we can make time and she's like uh my weekend plans. She's like uh I'm gonna what you say. I'm gonna watch my pajamas so I can put a blouse over my pajama top when I'm on an online meeting with work With some dry shampoo in other words, I keep forgetting nobody has any plans Thank you Barbara. I'll make a decision. I'll make the right decision and I need to get back in the frame of mind I just kind of I'm not caring right now and I need to care again Not Nancy care again, but care again Because when this is all over if I've gained a crappler way back I'm gonna be so mad at myself Because that's the only person thing I have to blame Hang on a minute Let's see if I can switch you guys around without dropping you Look how pretty it is Susan you can wear your pajamas anywhere you like I give you permission. I see teenagers walk around in their pajamas all day long now. They can look at us old broads doing it Isn't it pretty Barbara? I just love the sky We usually have a flyover right about now, but See not lost.  Yeah Oh, she is Oh, she is you know what that's another thing Oh my gosh, I have heard from Chelsea. She's doing really well. Um, she says that a lot of the other girls have gone home She's told me thank you for taking care of Oliver. She knows that we don't have room for her hair that she's good She's happy. She's healthy, but she's still my girl, you know You guys could also mass. I can't sew anything Heck yeah, Suze. I'm giving you all permission to go to Costco wherever now. You can only wear your pajamas if they're cute And if you brush your hair and your teeth have at it, man Well, we'll we'll be remembered as the uh Pajama quarantine the pajama team 2020 Oh, okay. Let's talk about that real quick. Okay. I lied. I'm not leaving even though everybody else is leaving Oh needy or so saggy Did has anybody did anybody watch my video and was it helpful at all poor? Um, judy revay Tried I think she meant online Yes, you could suzie. I'd make you I'd make you I'd come up there and I'd make it and my son would help me make it Because he likes pajamas too He's six foot four weighs about 240 pounds and wears ones. He's fitter than anybody Yeah, it's okay Susan. I'm letting you off because I'm not giving you any kisses today Did anybody do the the the mobile? of Yeah, you would the mobile meetings Um, because I did I didn't go to my meeting because I kind of slept through it But I had to try it out and I did get in Kathy says yes, it helped I still couldn't get video Okay, this is what I am reading Kath is that people are having troubles on their phones They're having audio problems on their phones But if they go on a tablet ipad, etc that they're having better luck There's steve.  I don't know. I thought it was going to be cold out here And debbie, how did you like it much better use ipad. Thank you Susan. Oops. There we go. Oh gosh. It says reconnecting We got disconnected you guys Right ding ding