STV slammed over loss of OB units

STV has announced 45 people are facing redundancy with a further 15 at risk if Setanta Sport does not renew its contract with STV in May.

Setanta has the live rights to the Scottish Premier League (SPL) football for the next few years, while STV has rights to highlights only until the end of this season. Setanta currently contract STV to provide outside broadcasts (OBs), studio, post-production and transmission for their SPL contract.

At talks last Tuesday, STV advised the joint unions that it was keen to retain the Setanta contract but had already told Setanta it would no longer be providing OBs, resulting in 24 outside broadcast staff facing redundancy. STV had previously told the unions it would not have any SPL football programme next season.

13 of the job losses are in Aberdeen at STV North (what used to be Grampian) as STV is proposing cutting back its Northern staffing levels to provide news only. This has prompted further fears amongst staff that ultimately STV is looking to pull out of Aberdeen altogether and will provide all news from its Glasgow base.

In what was seen as a kick in the teeth to STV employees, none of the senior managers responsible for these proposals turned up to the union talks last week, which has left moral plummeting almost as fast as the company's share price, currently at 14.5p per share.

Paul McManus, Scottish Organiser said: “It's common for managers to refuse to take the blame for their failures in running a company but this is the first time I can recall dealing with a company where the managers wouldn't even face the joint unions to explain their proposals.”

It was left to the HR manager and an assistant to present the cuts to the unions.

BECTU has a meeting with Ofcom tomorrow at which the union will highlight STV's abandonment of its licence obligations to produce a stated amount of regional programming output, which up until now Ofcom has allowed to be made up of football coverage, stating that this constitutes a 'regional' programme.

The highlights will be replaced by a nightly, half-hour news programme.