BBC Scotland has come under fire from the trade body representing independent producers over concerns that it is continuing to operate an in-house entertainment division in breach of its charter.
John McVay, chief executive of Pact – the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television – has written to the BBC board after producers claimed they were having to compete with BBC Studios and BBC in-house to win commissions.
One accused BBC Scotland of “burying its head in the sand”.
McVay said the corporation’s charter required the BBC to operated 100% contestability, with the exception of news, sport and children’s programming, in return for running a commercial BBC Studios.
He told Broadcast magazine: “It is a very strange anomaly. We can’t see how it is consistent with the charter, the pre-charter Pact agreement or contestability requirements.”
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BBC Studios was established in 2017 and the magazine said some senior figures from the Scottish indie producers’ community had raised the matter with Donalda MacKinnon, BBC Scotland’s director. They claimed they were forced to compete with BBC Studios and the corporation’s in-house teams to win programme commissions.
Pauline Law, who is head of multiplatform productions and leads the in-house music, entertainment and events team, has secured orders including Emeli Sandé’s Street Symphony, a four-part flagship series to mark the launch of the new BBC Scotland channel Later this month.
McVay said: “This isn’t news or high-level natural history, this is a mainstream entertainment programme.
“We would like the BBC board to provide us with justification as to why the indie sector can’t provide this programming.”
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Broadcast said sources had suggested that MacKinnon was unwilling to incorporate the in-house team into BBC Studios’ Pacific Quay division.
One producer said: “Donalda is determined to breathe life into in-house ... It’s unjustifiable and is going to turn into a huge row.”
A BBC Scotland spokesperson said the Street Symphony commission had met the in-house division’s “standard commissioning and contestability process”.
He added: “All relevant content on the BBC Scotland channel has been commissioned in a fair, reasonable, non-discriminatory and transparent contestable process.
“This is entirely consistent with our charter and agreement obligations and to ensure that we commission the best possible ideas for Scottish audiences.
“We have ongoing processes in place to ensure fair competition, which are overseen by Ofcom.”
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