(Image: BBC/Elaine Livingstone)
BBC Scotland’s director has warned she will have to make further cuts in the coming months after pulling the plug on its dedicated TV channel.
Hayley Valentine has revealed the decision to wind up the BBC Scotland channel by the spring is “not the end of it” for staff at its Pacific Quay headquarters.
She has admitted that the BBC will save less than £2m by shutting down the linear channel and bringing its flagship News at Seven programme to an end.
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She said the saving would not be a "silver bullet" which would avoid the need further cuts within BBC Scotland.
However, Ms Valentine has insisted that around 90 per cent of the content currently broadcast on the BBC Scotland channel will still be available on BBC iPlayer, BBC One and BBC Two.
The BBC Scotland TV channel has been run from the broadcaster's Pacific Quay headquarters in Glasgow. (Image: Colin Mearns)
BBC Scotland announced plans to cut more than 60 jobs in August, with a further 10 expected to go due to the closure of its TV channel and the News at Seven programme.
Speaking on BBC Scotland’s Scotcast programme, Ms Valentine suggested further programmes may have to be wound up as part of the broadcaster’s ongoing cost-cutting drive.
She told presenter Martin Geissler: “We're in a really difficult financial position at the moment and we need to resolve it.”
Ms Valentine was speaking after it was confirmed that the BBC Scotland channel, BBC Three and BBC Radio 4 Extra would be wound up by the spring of 2028 under the broadcaster's plans to make £500m worth of savings by 2028.
The BBC Scotland director was asked by Mr Geissler whether there were “more cuts coming” at Pacific Quay.
She said: “No, this is not the end of it.
“As you know, this is the second time I've been out with an announcement in, you know, as many months. I did my first announcement in August.
“I understand, and I've heard this increasingly across the last few months, that people want to know more than fear the worst.
“They just want to know for their own futures. I understand quite how difficult and unsettling it is.
“I chose to come out in August and tell people as much as I could at that point.
“There’s been a process by which we've analysed the future of the BBC Scotland channel alongside other channels in the UK.
“But I cannot promise that I won't be back because, you know, there are probably further savings to be made.”
Mr Geissler said: “That sounds quite alarming to somebody who works here. I mean, that sounds like it's a drip feed, like the next cuts might be weeks or months away, rather than years.”
Ms Valentine said: “We are trying not to drip feed.
“It's very difficult, because these are really complex decisions and we take them incredibly seriously.
“I know that if you look across the piece we've been announcing things about other channels and other programmes across the BBC over the last weeks and months, and it starts to feel like that.
"I don't think I'll be back this year with anything else.
“We're in a really difficult financial position at the moment and we need to resolve it. We need to resolve it quickly. We need a sustainable financial settlement going forward and then we'll be able to plan better.”
Mr Geissler said: “It feels in here like if you cut any further it will really noticeably affect the output. Do you accept that premise?”
Ms Valentine said: “To be honest, part of the reason that we made the difficult decision to close a programme this time, and we've made previous announcements that have involved closing programmes, is because we know that we cannot salami-slice anymore.
“There is not a lot of fat in my budget. I do not have money sitting in places that is not output-focused. Part of the (latest) decision was to take away some money that was about how we deliver the content and keep as much as possible for content.
“There is a £500m savings target and BBC Scotland has to play a part in that. We are making some difficult choices across the board in terms of how we contribute to that. But I'm trying to do it in a way that keeps as much of the content as possible and gets it out to the audience in the places that they are increasingly consuming it in.”
Mr Geissler said BBC Scotland staff had been told that 90 per cent of the output on the channel that is being wound up would now go out on BBC iPlayer, BBC One or BBC Two in Scotland.
Ms Valentine said: “Yes, you will still be able to find all of the content that you currently get apart from News at Seven.
“We are closing News at Seven and I say that not lightly at all. It's a great programme, but we know from our audience data that the audience has a lot of television news in Scotland and it's not the only way that they receive their news.”
Asked how much was being cut from BBC Scotland’s budget under the latest plans, Ms Valentine said: “What we are saving is the cost of delivering a channel and the cost of delivering that news programme within it.
“I don't want to go into exact detail, but we are saving between £1m and £2m by doing this. It is not the silver bullet. It is not going to save us all of our money by any means.
“We are looking everywhere at small savings. There is not one place where we're pointing a target at and saying we need to save all of the money across there.
“You will have seen the earlier savings that we made. We looked at news, we looked at sport, we looked at commissioning, we looked at audio. We looked at our back office and our support services.
“And what we're trying to do is have lots of smallish ideas that save us smallish amounts of money in order to keep giving the audience as much of what they've come to expect from us as possible.”