Broadcasting boundaries

You could have guessed that something like this was going to happen:

The SNP's Christine Grahame complained about the level of UK-wide coverage given to a sport she said was of "only marginal interest in Scotland".

I wonder if Ms Grahame is still speaking to her colleague Ms Cunningham:

But Ms Grahame soon found herself embattled after only one of her colleagues, Bruce McFee, signed up in support and another of her other SNP colleagues, Roseanna Cunningham, signed a Tory counter-motion rubbishing her claims.

There was indeed full coverage of the Ashes on television here in Scotland, and it seemed to me that there was a great deal of interest. Over the 25 days of play I visited several of Edinburgh's excellent pubs and, without exception, the Test Match was shown live on TV. These were local establishments, not the "Hooray Henry" places that can be found near the somewhat anglicised University. With only one exception that I noticed, every Scot watching seemed to be supporting England.

Nevertheless, the rather mean-spirited Ms Grahame does have a point. She's clearly out-of-touch when it comes to Scottish interest in cricket, as most of these comments demonstrate. But there is something that antagonises most Scots, nationalist or not.

For example:

This was a specifically English event and should have been covered on English regional news. Had it been Scotland or Wales, that is exactly what would have happened. Another example of the London-based TV stations getting confused between England and the UK. Will they ever learn?

and:

How many people do or don't play cricket in Scotland is irrelevant to the discussion. It is no different to the insufferably verbose coverage that was given in the UK-wide media after the England Rugby World Cup win. It is not the sport that is the problem, it is the crystal clear fact that many south of the border (and very many in the SE) find it almost impossible to make a distinction between England and Britain, and that fact translates through into the media - print and broadcast. That is the area which requires criticism, not leather on willow.

and:

The differentiation between England and Britain has disappeared again.

and again:

I have no interest in cricket, but even if I had - why did the BBC keep saying "the whole nation is celebrating"? Surely, they meant "England" is celebrating? Now I know why a friend of mine calls the 6 o'clock news "The English News".

The BBC really does have to address this problem. After devolution we were told that the BBC would make special efforts to get the England/Britain distinction correct. Of course, such a policy should have applied pre-devolution as well. But the BBC doesn't seem able to get it right. On "national" British news programmes we still get a stream of items about health, education, policing and so on that do not apply throughout the UK but that are presented as if they do. That kind of sloppiness does the SNP's work for it.