STV has done it again.

Three months after BBC Scotland announced its flagship programme Scotland 2016 would be axed after failing to compete with STV’s Scotland Tonight, the commercial broadcaster appears to have beaten Aunty to the line in delivering a Scottish Six too.

The idea of providing a single, integrated, nightly BBC TV news programme mixing international, UK and national stories with a news team based in Scotland from a Scottish perspective (as BBC Radio Scotland has actually done for two decades) has been much discussed and oft delayed. Last week, it seemed the Scottish Six might be kiboshed completely, despite top-secret pilots at Pacific Quay, because UK Government ministers hinted any new programme would be expected to give the UK perspective on news – whatever that is.

But suddenly and unexpectedly the Scottish Six logjam broke yesterday, when STV announced it would broadcast just such a programme – STV News Tonight – every weekday evening from “early 2017” at 7pm on STV2. In one fell swoop they stole BBC Scotland’s thunder once again. And prompted a small multitude of questions.

Can STV’s Scottish Seven be a quality programme without a lot of extra cash? Will it have the same editorial stance as STV’s existing six o’clock Scottish News and if not, can it really hope to pinch viewers from Channel 4 News – regularly voted the most trusted news in the UK? How will Aunty respond – does an integrated STV news programme make a BBC Scottish Six more likely, because the well-resourced BBC can’t be less ambitious than an unsubsidised private operator, or less likely, because BBC Scotland needn’t replicate STV’s effort?

Broadly speaking, it seems STV News Tonight will be fairly similar to the BBC’s early plans for a Scottish Six – with some important differences.

First, it’ll be on air at 7pm not 6pm – a smart move because “tea-time” is getting later and later for most viewers, even though STV insist moving with the audience wasn’t the main rationale for picking that later slot. The News at Seven (as it’s bound to be called) will be an addition to the current STV/ITN news offering at six rather than a replacement – neatly avoiding all the rows, uncertainty and agonising that’s beset Aunty’s plans to replace Reporting Scotland and the network Six o’clock News with one single integrated programme. Au contraire, STV will let viewers watch news with the existing London/Scotland split on STV1 from 6pm and will also provide an alternative, integrated show with the world view from Pacific Quay an hour later on STV2.

Secondly, STV’s Scottish Seven will sit on an entirely new channel. Currently, STV has licences to deliver local news services for Glasgow and Edinburgh, which broadcast on Freeview’s channel eight in and around those cities. Early next year, local licences for Dundee, Aberdeen and Ayr will be added and STV’s local TV network will be serving about 80 per cent of the Scottish population. STV says it’s this licensing change that’s prompted the Scottish Seven – not any desire to steal a march on the BBC, however pleasurable that piece of one-upmanship must feel.

STV2 won’t be a full alternative channel though. Currently, STV Glasgow and Edinburgh go on air at 6am but remain dormant for much of the day, springing into action with Live at 5, followed by a dedicated half-hour bulletin of Glasgow or Edinburgh news at 6pm. STV clearly hopes the arrival of a prestige news programme will attract advertisers to STV2 but it’s not clear if that will finance more daytime TV. What is certain is the usual suspects (Borders, Dumfries and Galloway and the Highlands and Islands) will be left out, though excluded rural residents can view STV2’s new offering online via the STV Player and on Sky TV if their broadband is good enough (and that’s a big if). Indeed, if STV’s Scottish Seven takes off, the lack of genuinely nationwide coverage will become an important issue – it certainly should.

But the bulk of city-dwelling Scottish news junkies will suddenly have a plethora of STV news offerings – their existing news programme at six o’clock on channel three, their local news programmes on STV2 at the same time and the new integrated “Scottish Seven” programme. Heady stuff – but surely a recipe for complaint and switch-off if each of these offerings is samey and predictable.

The third big difference: STV’s News Tonight will be a half-hour bulletin, not a full hour’s duration, as the BBC intends for the Scottish Six. STV say that’s partly because there’s so much news beforehand and partly because evidence suggests a full hour is a tough sell for viewers without a change of pace or a change of presenter. (This is something the journalists piloting BBC Scotland’s Scottish Six are also said to be struggling with).

Half an hour may also be the limit of ITN’s capacity to produce bespoke packages on the day’s big national and international stories from a Scottish perspective. ITN is to appoint a Scottish editor to customise its output and while it’s all too easy to see how that could fail, ITN is a formidable news-making machine, which creates news with a different feel and agenda for ITV’s News at Ten, Channel Four and Channel Five. If all staff involved north and south of the Border were serious about creating news with a Scottish agenda and perspective – and this would demand constant daily discussion – it can be done.

Obviously there will be fewer stories about nurses’ strikes that affect only England and less cricket news for a start – but beyond that would the Scots or London team handle the result of the Labour leadership vote this weekend, for example? In a two-minute report, would the reaction from London Labour matter more or less than the response from Nicola Sturgeon? This, of course, is the challenge most Scottish broadcast journalists have been waiting for all their lives.

It’s why the Scottish Seven will start with a large audience of curious, expectant folk – an audience that will, however, rapidly go south if the new programme fails to deliver a fresh, confident and genuinely neutral stance on Scotland’s constitutional future. Few except real diehards expect a pro-indy outlook from STV News Tonight, but a new programme that tries to ignore the biggest political issue in Scotland for generations will simply fail.

With Brexit and indyref2 in the offing, the Scottish Seven couldn’t be starting at a more exciting or a more demanding time.

According to Napier University media Professor Eamonn O’Neill: “STV’s integrated news programme will create a new normal. But it must create a news agenda that’s of its time. It must have great awareness of what’s truly relevant to Scots – not pick mainstream stories and hang a kilt on them. Mixing news is easily done throughout the Nordic countries and devolved nations like Catalonia.

“One of the most important things though is to have the right editor. With so many delicate judgement calls it’s vital the new editor is a great journalist – and even better if that editor is a woman.”

I’d also make a plea for STV to turn their Scottish Seven into a Scottish Nationwide, with stories fed in from all the “out-stations” around Scotland to create a genuinely “national” news agenda.

Who knows which pleas STV will heed or who their news anchors and editors will be? No-one, but two things are for sure – the Scotland Tonight team will have an extra reason to celebrate when their fifth birthday comes round next month.

And Scots finally have an ambitious, but seriously capable, commercial station to provide a genuine alternative to BBC Scotland. That has to be good news all round.