Not another post about Sky (I really can’t be bothered, although it will be a shame for cricket to be away from terrestrial television), but it’s about the BBC’s regional / national / whatever news policy.

I’ve spotted two posts on this today. The comments at Freedom and Whisky are filled with people wanting a BBC England. I always found that request a bit puzzling, as I have mentioned before on this blog. See, for instance, this post (you need to scroll a bit until I start talking about BBC England).

I just don’t see what advantage a BBC England would have over the existing BBC. The reason there isn’t a BBC England is because in England they have regions. A lot of people complain about the whole concept of regions, but I don’t know what the problem is. Frankly, I’d love for Scotland to have BBC regions because that would save us from being subjected to tokenistic non-stories about sheep in the Outer Hebrides. Then they could provide something resembling a local news service. If they were to get rid of the BBC regions to be replaced with a BBC England, the viewers in Cornwall would have to endure stories about the local news in Newcastle and vice-versa. How would that help anyone?

I happen to believe that the BBC has the balance wrong though. With devolution, the 6 O’Clock News increasingly has too many Englandandwales-specific stories. I think a ‘Scottish Six’ (but keeping the 10 as a Britain-wide broadcast) as I have described in this post would do just nicely.

Of course, there are those who would like to separate the BBC into pieces completely, and this is where the SNP come in. Alex C at Land Of The Nearly Free has a little moan about how he as a Scot in uninterested in cricket which is why we should never see this stuff on the television. Well cricket is actually very popular in Scotland — see the post below.

If some SNP supporters were in charge of the airwaves we’d probably be subjected to 24 hour caber tossing and documentaries about fishermen. Or yet more Chewin’ the Fat spin-offs. I know I’d rather have the cricket thank you very much.

Hector Maclean commenting at Land Of The Nearly Free notes the killer reason why chopping up the BBC would be terrible.

…when it comes to world news I am not confident that a Scottish broadcaster could match the resources that a UK wide one has, and consequently it would not come up to the standards I as a viewer have grown accustomed to. I would therefore not wish to lose my access to UK wide broadcasts.

Indeed, you only have to look at Scottish TV who have trouble enough covering their own ITV region, never mind world news.

I thought that ITV’s regions were a lot more offensive anyway. Take the Border region for instance. Can anybody explain that? I can’t stand regional (or national, if you must) television anyway. Apart from providing a local news service (which is fair enough, especially when we’ve got devolution), all that BBC Scotland has brought us, as far as I can tell, is River City, and the most overrated ‘comedy’ show known to man, Chewin’ the Fat. As for Scottish TV… well, the sooner it’s swalled up by ITV plc, the better.

Not only anti-English, but anti-Scottish aswell.

Christine Grahame, a South of Scotland MSP, submitted a motion entitled “It’s Simply Not Cricket” which “lamented the overwhelming UK-wide coverage of a sport which is only of marginal interest in Scotland”.

Petty, untrue nonsense. Who did she think she would impress by doing this? No doubt the sort of person who thinks you must be English if you don’t agree with the SNP (so, sadly, it’ll win her quite a few votes).

Maybe Christine Grahame and others like her could take a few lessons in the culture of the country she supposedly loves so much. There are more cricket clubs per capita in Scotland than there are in England. There are more cricket clubs in the lowlands than there are rugby clubs in the whole of Scotland.

Update: Cricket has also been played in Scotland longer than football.

Setting a good example.

I am a casual (almost horizontal, actually) cricket viewer. I watched the wickets tumble yesterday afternoon, but unfortunately I was in bed and missed what sounds like a stunning climax this morning. Apparently it’s the second-closest Test match victory evar. My brother assures me that it was awesome.