it is a little on the nippy side and it has been like it for the last few days. that will not change in the short term and a frost on the way tonight. these are the temperatures late afternoon into early evening. five, six celsius and a fair amount of cloud across the uk. just a bit of rain there in the north—west of scotland. through tonight, we have light winds and clearing skies, temperatures will dip below freezing, certainly outside of city centres and even in some of the towns on the south coast it could be below freezing as well. but not in western scotland where there is an atlantic breeze here which is blowing in more cloud, bits and pieces of rain for places like the hebrides, so i think wet here into tomorrow. you can see the outbreaks of rain, but the vast majority of the country should have another dry day and remaining quite cloudy and also a little on the nippy side. big changes on the way next week. hello this is bbc

news, the headlines: pressure grows on the government over its pay offer to health service staff in england — more unions have joined the backlash. pope francis has delivered an impassioned condemnation of extremism and violence during the first ever papal visit to iraq. concerns over unnecessary self—isolation for school children in england, because of inaccurate coronavirus test results. police say they're increasingly concerned about the disappearance of a woman in south london on wednesday night. they're usually a sign that spring has sprung but why is this host of golden daffodils being left unpicked? in cricket, india thrash england by an innings and 25 runs in the fourth test to secure the series 3—1. now on bbc news, the media show. is the uk media obsessed with westminster?

hello. there is an almighty ruckus going on in holyrood. it's salmond versus sturgeon for the future of scottish nationalism, perhaps scotland and maybe even the united kingdom itself. but this is a story that london—based journalists seem to be finding hard to follow. columnists are proclaiming their confusion, news networks are mislabeling prominent scottish politicians. is british media just too westminster—obsessed to cover truly national politics properly? and also this week, bbc three is returning as a tv channel — yes, a tv channel — six years after it went online only. is this a clever ploy by the bbc and bbc television to win back precious younger viewers or a desperate attempt to compete with those streaming giants we may have mentioned one or two times on this show? let me introduce you to our guests. stuart murphy was the controller of bbc three when it launched in 2003.

he's now the chief executive of the english national opera. laura o'reilly is media editor at insider, formerly known as business insider, of course. teddy nygh is the co—founder of fully focused. that's a production company which is behind the new bbc three comedy pru. more from them in a moment. and joining us later in the show will be frank o'donnell. he's the editor in chief of dc thompson's newspapers in aberdeenshire. that's including the press injournal and evening express. before that, he was editor of the scotsman, no less. and callum baird is editor of the national, the scottish paper launched in 2014. welcome to you all. callum, let's start with you. you must have one screen on this zoom call. by the way, unmute yourselves when you're speaking over the next 28 minutes or so. callum, you must have one screen on this zoom call and another fixed on a livestream from holyrood. yeah, i've been watching all day. what did you make of it?

it's gone on and on and on and on, it keeps going down a few odd rabbit holes and going over the same ground over and over again. it's certainly been fascinating, i think, watching alex salmond's evidence last week. i think you can tell why these two people have been such significant figures in scottish and uk politics over the last ten years, because they are both extremely accomplished at this, and no question has probably got the better of either of them so far. well, a huge challenge forjournalists like yourself. we'll come onto that in a bit, callum. good to have you with us. frank o'donnell, every local paper has their share of business personalities. you have a prominent golf course and hotelier on your patch. i'm going to ask you, how has... donald trump, that's it. has donald trump provided you with any good copy these last few years? a lot of good copy of the last few years. absolutely. there's huge interest in donald trump because he owns golf

courses in aberdeen, that continues to be the case. i think possibly the p and] have got themselves into a bother about whether they support him or not, whether it's for these golf courses or against them. does he care about that? everyone says he cares about fox news, does donald trump care what the press and journal has to say about his golf course? yes and no. he phoned up a lot of times. he would phone upjournalists directly at that point to make sure they were properly briefed and they knew what was going on, so yeah, i think there's an element of he does care, even what's happening is scotland. is nice when politicians call. let's start with the news that bbc three is returning as a broadcast tv channel subject to approval by the regulator. laura 0'reilly, what's the rationale the bbc have presented about bringing this back now? essentially, ever since bbc three went online only, it's really-

pumped out hit after hit. we've had fleabag, - killing eve, this country, which i love, drag race uk. normal people alone - was requested to be watched 63 million times on iplayer. it does seem like the smartest strategy in media prevails, - which is original content, - so it is kind of refreshing to see a change from what was essentially the family guy repeats channel. i i'm being mean. but i think the sense of the bbc is it deserves a channel based l on this recent success, _ and it does seem like the previous decision to make it online only was a bit of a blunder. - the idea, i suppose, - is there are still young people watching tv as it aired on linear. not many as before, but there's still an audience there. - 16 to 34—year—olds watched . about an hour and 47 minutes

of broadcast tv which includes i things like iplayer, butjust over half of that was watched as live so there is still a market. - there's still a market. just briefly, i keep hearing the bbc is meant to be making savings. how will this be funded? it's interesting. i mean, there will be - an hour taken off of bbc. my question is about what happens. to bbc four now, not least sky arts. it remains to be seen how this- is going to be thought about when it comes to the excel spreadsheets. stuart, you want bbc three back in 2003. what's the assessment of the return? it's good news. i can't wait. there's so many options, so for an audience to be pretty lazy and likes to have things handed to them on a plate, to sit back on a linear tv channel is amazing. i'm super happy.

i think it was the worst decision to take it online. did you, why? out of courtesy... that's where the young audience is. it's the biggest strategic might take ever. why was it a strategic mistake? if it's on a tv you kind of flicked through and get something by mistake, so it captures the passive viewer and entices them. it allows you to do cross promotion in a way you can't when it's online, and there's so many things about the philosophy which is people stumble across stuff they don't yet know they love. where you put two big insurers either side of an unknown show, a good way to get people into something they didn't know they love. to put it in the kind of wilderness of online meant it was only really proactive viewers went and found it.

hats off to bbc three, because as laura says, they've had unbelievable hits. isn't it working? if it's working, why change the strategy? fleabag, normal people etc. why change it if it's working? sorry, for young people online. it's working but it would work even better. i think the approach the bbc has taken is we've got hits here. let's supersize the hit. let's notjust think it's working on trucking, let's bring it more onto bbc one as they had and onto terrestrial channel. i look at what the bbc offers and if you're a mid—60—year—old white guy in southern england, you're over—catered for, you've got bbc one, bbc two, bbc and lots of bbc news. they're also the most vocal complainants, so i think the tide has change in society and it's no longerjust the loudest people in their 50s and 60s who can dominate with the media output should be.

obviously, the bbc needs young people to pay the licence fee to justify being universal. just before i bring teddy in, what did you make of laura's assertion? yeah, when we launch bbc three, there is an intention to name the young channel three and the other channel 4. if you call the older one 3 and the younger one 4 it is easier to axe the younger one. i think the bbc needs to cater for absolutely everyone, and audio younger audiences at the moment have big shows at the moment. radio one and radio one xtra cater for them but other than that, there's not a lot for people under 25 on bbc apart from bbc three.

let's look at this from the point of view of the producer. teddy, this is presumably fantastic for you. you already make programmes for bbc three, including pru — about a pupil referral unit. now your programme will be on a linear channel. let's be realistic. how important really is linear tv to audience? to the audience, i think not as important as it would've been before everything went online or over streaming. but i think that it still has a value for production companies. i like the slot on bbc one. this is late night.

isn't going to make a financial difference? yeah, there should be because it's linear and set of digital. it also shows their commitment to use content which i think is great because it's needed, and i think that can generate lots more great content that people want to see. the challenge will be bringing people over, but they still have iplayer. it will be a challenge, but if the point of bbc three, the point of programmes like pru is to get eyeballs, isn't tiktok or youtube or instagram what the bbc should be focusing on? i'm glad you're laughing, but teddy, why should the bbc be spending money on those platforms for young people? you can still hit all those platforms up. we're in a cross—platform word.

you just make sure you bring everyone over to where you want them to land. laura, why are you laughing? it was for the same reason teddy said. | if you programme to younger people, tiktok should already be _ in your marketing plans. the most streamers companies like netflix would kill to have a linear channel. is that true? yeah, it's valuable for production. it's a level of respect that you are reaching, that traditional audience, i guess _ there's a level of respect that comes within their channel. they were there first at the end of the day, and i think there's still a nostalgia and a feeling towards him. so, i think being able to offer both is a good overall option. stuart. i think people tend to miss

understand what your audience love and think they only like short tv. also really home—grown tv. actually, it's notjust that. they love game of thrones, it's completely involving cinematic standard of tv. flea bag was brilliant. massive production values. it was complicated. i think those outside that young audience sometimes characterise young audiences as one and three second verses of youtube stuff. they do at some point, but they also love comedies like teddy's and involving dramas and factual theories. stuart, you've got extensive experience, expertise even, in bbc politics, albeit from a different era. how hard it is it for the bbc to relaunch bbc three wall, for example, there's this huge

uproar over the over 75 licensing? it's interesting. i think in some ways, it's going to be very easy because the bbc�*s there to take things that work for the bbc, and those aren't politically expeditious things to say, so theyjust focus on... in one sense, it's just easy. you try to forget the noise. it's really hard because it doesn't sit well if you say older audiences have higher disposable income than younger audiences, older audiences consume more linear tv. they should pay, why not? they consume enormous amount of tv, they earn proportionally more. sufferfrom huge amount of unemployment. they suffer from enormous stress in terms of gender, sexuality, physical stress, feeling disengaged from nationhood.

i worry about the stress that younger audiences are going through. it's absolutely right the bbc step in and notjust give them fun stuff and drama, but factual stuff and help them make sense of the complicated world. i can hear the fury of some of our audience are hearing you right now and saying how dare he say such a thing about older audiences! we talked a bit about bbc three, for those you don't know it's about, just tell us what pru is about. it is set in a pupil referral unit which is a place where young people go if they been expelled from school, and i think that not a lot of people know the name pru or what it means, or the acronym. so i think it's a great opportunity to show that even some people who do know about it may have a negative outlook on what they are. they can be a place of hope for many young people, and having that smaller classes

and having teachers will give them more time and energy. you can go on and achieve great things. so, essentially, we follow our directors and all of the chaos that ensues. are you pleased with the ratings so far? yeah, i mean, who knows what the numbers are? we don't have to wait about 30 days to find out, but, yeah, the reviews have been good. we had four stars across the board, and the feedback we're getting from young people and people who have been to pru and people at schools or who know people who have... you're going to get a their audience. stuart, when bbc three restarts, should it report...

should it repeat little britain? why are you laughing? i think it should play things that younger audiences loves and other a9—year—olds like me hates. and that's the third time you've laughed! some people thing little britain is offensive. sorry, i'm missing the point of the question. let me think. should we repeat little britain? the heart of comedy often involves defending some people, and that's why people laugh. personally, as a gay dad, i don't find the anti—homosexual jokes in little britain offensive, but i can see how some people can be really offended. i think it's made with love. stuart, thank you very much. let's turn to events in holyrood. invocations from the media rather than politics. callum, the national.

it was founded in 2014, why? because there was an imbalance in scottish newspapers. i think there were around 30 daily original titles at the time. 37 of them either took a neutral stance against independence. the only one that did, the sunday herald, saw success off the back of this. the guy that was in that paper pitch the idea of taken that. what do you say to those critics of yours, and there are a few, that you're essentially the in—house journal of the snp? i think the biggest problem with that is is actually the fact

that the cause of independence and the independence movement is too bound up. it might be the case that a few parties are pro—independence, and you have a balance view, but it's actually... unionists believe the same thing. this is a lot to do with the salmond drama at the moment. they smell blood here and think the way of damaging independence and putting halt to another five years is... you've had a hard time in the way you've had others against independence. on certain issues, we had. not nearly far enough on things like land. we think they're not bolstering enough independence. the snp? yes. there's this union that exists

within downing street. that's what i said. 0k. you're tempting me towards making this a politics show. frank o'donnell, i want to talk to you about your publications in a moment, but with your long experience in scottish media, what would you say is being impacted? i totally understand why there was a gap in the market with the national... i think that it has probably, and callum would be closer to this than i, but it's activated some people to stop reading mainstream media. given them a place to look at and reflect some of the reviews there is an opinion that says the job of a newspaper is to confront people's biases,

and to an extent, i suppose the national does that. i suppose for me, i suppose that engages people and what's going on around them. it has to be a good thing. you look after a number of papers in aberdeenshire, including the aberdeen citizen. they have political... completely independent, no. my personal view, and it does time with a history of the paper, is that i believe we shouldn't be telling people how to vote. iwant to... i feel i succeed if someone turns over the page and reads in the column and vehemently disagrees, because even if they don't change their view, at least they understand a little more where that person is coming from. i think the job of the newspaper is to challenge people and is to make people read things that make them feel uncomfortable, because there is too much tribalism and society. there are too many people who take stances and don't act or stop being curious about why people disagree with them. you're literally stuck about...

against twitter. let's not go there. if there are referendums tomorrow, would your papers remain neutral? absolutely. callum, there's a piece in your papers today saying uk media only "started paying attention to this new story at the end of next week when alex salmond appeared at the inquiry." it also points out... is your argument that the uk media is too obsessed with westminster to cover national politics properly? i think so. i think it's interesting that some of the most high—profile media voices in london that have been covering this for a long time are using scottish voices who work with the uk. people have been all over this for a long time, but there hasn't been much, i would've said, from

the rest of the media. until something like alex salmond's testimony happened and everyone switched on. frank, with their historical lens, how big a story do you think the salmond inquiry is? are your readers that interested? do think some people are saying the story has been overhyped by the media? no, i think it is a huge story when you think about the proximity of the election in may, when you think about the case for indy ref two, when you think about how important nicola sturgeon and alex salmond are to the snp. if sturgeon wasn't there, who would be the next leader? there is... some argue she's so far ahead of the rest. the implications are those

individuals for the election consequently to be union, i don't think you can overstate how important the story is. when you look at the figures, that is backed up. sorry to interrupt. callum, would you go along with that? is an absolutely massive story. it's huge. i completely every dome i agree with frank. how do you approach it when... are you not tempted to take sides? you must have great connections and both sides? it's really, really difficult because my sense of... people like to categorise it as the salmond camp and the sturgeon camp, but my sense is that the much bigger camp is in the middle, and i've always really respected these two. it's a bit sad. obviously, the two accounts are very

vocal, so it's just a case of him telling it straight, reporting the news, doing a really good job. not going any further than that. have you spoken to salmond or sturgeon in the past two weeks? not in the past two weeks. the same question of whether british journalism has a westminster problem. do you think london newspapers have a frank principal? often have a completely different story, versus the rest of the uk. i see you're grimacing. you're. .. is that a smirk or a grimace? i think covering politics is a lot more complex than ever has been, because it used to be the case that if you wanted to know what was going on, i think with devolution in the pandemic, has highlighted that. i say to cover the uk properly and understand nations is more

complex and nuanced. so, it's understandable that there is a bit of a westminster focus. i think that some of the characters in london who do cover stories tend to cover a bit like a foreign country, and i think there could be more done they are to understand what's going on in scotland, particularly with what's happening at the moment. laura o'reilly, just briefly to you and finally to you. i see you're nodding. it's a subject that doesn't come up every single day. _ it's on a subject that everyone in westminster are perhaps i following either early on twitter and refreshing their twitter- feed all the time. i think unfortunately there probably does need to be a little bit- more education there. thank you so much to all of our guests. frank, callum, laura, stuart,

teddy thank you for your time. goodbye. it isa it is a bit on the nippy side. there is a frost on the way tonight. these are the temperatures tonight. a bit of rain in the north west of scotland. through tonight, we have light winds and clearing skies,

temperatures will dip below freezing, setting outside city centres and even in some of the towns on the south coast it could be below freezing but not in western scotland, and atlantic breezes blowing in more cloud, some rain for places like the hebrides so i think were here tomorrow. the vast majority of the country should have another dry day, and remained quite cloudy and also a little on the nippy side. big changes in the way next week.

this is bbc news. the headlines at five... pressure grows on the government over its pay offer to health service staff in england. more unions have joined the backlash. pope francis has delivered an impassioned condemnation of extremism and violence during the first ever papal visit to iraq. concerns over unnecessary self—isolation for school children in england, because of inaccurate —— because of coronavirus infection test results. police say they're increasingly concerned about the disappearance of a woman in south london on wednesday night. they're usually a sign that spring has sprung but why is this host of golden daffodils being left unpicked? in cricket, india thrash england by an innings and 25 runs in the fourth test to secure

the series 3—1.