Vent: Scottish devolution ruining podcasts

Herbalus

I listen to the Money Box podcast from Radio4, and recently I've noticed that there is always a Scottish representative on the live phone ins. I don't have anything against Scots of course (quite like their accent in fact), but it does highlight how far the increasing devolution has removed Scotland from the rest of the UK, and it makes the podcast really annoying.

Because Scotland has in its wisdom opted to decide rules for themselves, every single phone in question has to be answered by both the English/Welsh/NI and then Scottish experts. It's tedious.

"And is that the case in Scotland?" - "No, it's quite different....*two minutes why it's different*..."
"In Scotland it's not actually like that at all. Here's why...."

It effectively makes half of the podcast completely useless, and that's for both the Scots who are listening to the English experts, and for the rest who are listening to the Scots. No doubt there are many Scots who want more Scotland-focused content, and as a non-Scot I would quite like them to leave my podcasts alone if they want to be different!

zagubov

Herbalus wrote: »

I listen to the Money Box podcast from Radio4, and recently I've noticed that there is always a Scottish representative on the live phone ins. I don't have anything against Scots of course (quite like their accent in fact), but it does highlight how far the increasing devolution has removed Scotland from the rest of the UK, and it makes the podcast really annoying.

Because Scotland has in its wisdom opted to decide rules for themselves, every single phone in question has to be answered by both the English/Welsh/NI and then Scottish experts. It's tedious.

"And is that the case in Scotland?" - "No, it's quite different....*two minutes why it's different*..."
"In Scotland it's not actually like that at all. Here's why...."

It effectively makes half of the podcast completely useless, and that's for both the Scots who are listening to the English experts, and for the rest who are listening to the Scots. No doubt there are many Scots who want more Scotland-focused content, and as a non-Scot I would quite like them to leave my podcasts alone if they want to be different!

Steady on. Before devolution, Scotland already had separate laws and legal systems and banks and other financial institutions and ran about four ministries worth of activities through the Scottish Office in Edinburgh.

Think yourself lucky you don't live in the Border TV area where your TV has to serve jurisdictions like Scotland, England and even (outside the UK/EU) Isle of Man.

As virtually all media serving Scotland are owned south of the Tweed, but paid for by licence- payers/customers north of the river, why shouldn't these media provide them with information relevant to their needs?

Viberduo

zagubov wrote: »

Steady on. Before devolution, Scotland already had separate laws and legal systems and banks and other financial institutions and ran about four ministries worth of activities through the Scottish Office in Edinburgh.

Think yourself lucky you don't live in the Border TV area where your TV has to serve jurisdictions like Scotland, England and even (outside the UK/EU) Isle of Man.

As virtually all media serving Scotland are owned south of the Tweed, but paid for by licence- payers/customers north of the river, why shouldn't these media provide them with information relevant to their needs?

Quite agree on the tv thing, growing up in Dumfries it used t show about 90% of content from Carlisle/Cumbria in fact my parents used to time it so it was often like 30 seconds in a 30 minute 6pm news report on Scotland, then Border closed down for a few years so my family was watching news based in Newcastle and often reports on Yorkshire! and were lucky to get about a minute or two a week in the news, I remember my parents finding out through a friend who works in the media the reason is that they had 1 member of staff to cover Scotland so if something happened in say near central Scotland where Dumfries and Galloway ended they either never had the time or were refused money to report on the item.

Used to really annoy us how there would be major news in our town and area ignored and they would show things like a primary school charity car boot sale from Yorkshire over us.

I do know there was so many complaints they were "forced" to show more Scottish stuff but that ended up like a hour or two tv shows a week that eventually stopped when Border started operating from Carlisle again.

.string.

Perhaps the time allocated should be proportional to the populations.

Joking aside, the information on different parts of the UK could be handy for those that may be considering a move from one part to another.

Herbalus

zagubov wrote: »

As virtually all media serving Scotland are owned south of the Tweed, but paid for by licence- payers/customers north of the river, why shouldn't these media provide them with information relevant to their needs?

I don't disagree. Just as I don't disagree that it'd be irritating to live in the border areas you mention. I just think it would be better if there was a Scotland specific podcast and and English specific podcast. I'm not advocating disenfranchising the Scots from the BBC: I'm just saying that it's irritating to have to listen to stuff that's got nothing to do with the vast majority of listeners.

The split down the podcasts essentially means that I imagine very few people are interested in the whole thing. That's equally annoying for the Scots and for me.