STV’s chief executive officer Rufus Radcliffe said the company had to respond to the “significant shift” in audience behaviour.<\/p>\n
He said: “As a commercial public service broadcaster, that receives no public funding, we are focused on the future and what we do best – trusted news and high-quality content that continues to resonate with audiences across all of Scotland.”<\/p>\n
Last year, the SNP, Scottish Conservatives, Scottish Labour, Scottish Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Greens united to sign a letter to TV watchdog Ofcom condemning the proposal.<\/p>\n
Nick McGowan-Lowe, the NUJ’s organiser for Scotland, described Ofcom’s decision as “sadly predictable”.<\/p>\n
He said the proposal had been opposed by the vast majority of viewers in the north of Scotland.<\/p>\n
He said: “This decision is bad for viewers, bad for business and bad for local democracy – all of which rely on quality local journalism.”<\/p>\n
The NUJ had claimed the changes were primarily driven by STV’s financial position. The share price fell badly after a profit warning last year and has not recovered.<\/p>\n
It also questioned the company’s decision to invest in setting up a radio station while making cuts to its main business.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Russell Borthwick, chief executive at Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce, said Ofcom’s decision was “deeply disappointing”.<\/p>\n
He said: “While STV has made changes to its original proposals, the reality remains that the north of Scotland will lose its dedicated news service and the local presentation that has been a trusted part of viewers’ lives for generations.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STV’s chief executive officer Rufus Radcliffe said the company had to respond to the “significant shift” in audience…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-614892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}