THE BBC will not face any state pressure to scrap the concept of a flagship news programme dubbed the 'Scottish Six', its director general has said.
Lord Tony Hall said that BBC Scotland would ensure all the elements of the proposed evening news programme were "right" before deciding when it would be broadcast, he told the Culture, Media and Sport Committee at Westminster,
Lord Hall denied he had been put under pressure by Culture Secretary John Whittingdale to water down the BBC's plans for the Scottish news bulletin.
BBC Scotland is currently running trials of the new programme and a decision on the show will be made in autumn, the new head of news at BBC Scotland, Gary Smith, recently said.
Lord Hall said: "I am under no pressure from anyone....lots of people give me advice, but that is not pressure and if it was pressure I would tell him it was inappropriate.
"I have lots of conversations and you cannot read nothing into that.
"We have had lots of conversations about lots of things but nobody has said anything to me that is inappropriate."
On the Scottish Six, he said: "We are are doing what any broadcaster would do, we are looking at the right way of serving our audiences in Scotland.
"The current method of delivering news between six and seven is very popular, the teams do a very good job, so whatever changes we make, must be in the knowledge that it is as good if not better than what we are doing at the moment.
"In my experience as a programme maker is the shape of the programme, the nature of the programme, and that is my only objective, to get this right for audiences in Scotland.
"I am not going into whether we are doing this or that, that is an editorial issue - all I care about is serving our audiences properly."
BBC Scotland recently said it was to end its Scotland 2016 current affairs programme, which runs on BBC 2 on week nights, at the end of this year, and "toughen up" Reporting Scotland.
John Nicholson, the SNP MP and culture spokesman at Westminster, disagreed that Reporting Scotland was popular and said it was too "couthy."
Lord Hall added: "Lots of people put pressure on me on all sorts of things, on all sorts of issues, I think its part of the job description, all parties do that.
"My job is to stand back from that noise and say 'what is best for audiences?' And that is what I am doing."
He said the BBC was "taking its time" developing the programme and would only launch it when it is "right".
Last week Mr Smith said of On Reporting Scotland: “I’m keen to make it newsier and more analytical, with fewer soft features, and more rigour round the news value of the stories in the sports belt.
“We’re looking at using more big screen studio analysis, and more live [reporting].”
He said: “This is a serious news programme and I want to toughen it up a bit. There were some nights where there were frankly too many soft stories.”
In February, the Herald revealed that BBC Scotland had been thrown into turmoil over plans for the "Scottish Six" early evening news programme after staff saw an "insulting" internal document which cast doubt ability of the present Glasgow-based news team to produce and lead the programme.
Journalists threatened to block the project unless BBC Scotland boss Ken MacQuarrie agreed to a full consultation on proposals to create a new hour-long bulletin.
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