I’M STUFFED. Full to burst of turkey, madeira cake and Home Counties-fed English television.

The Festive offerings served to underline the argument the Northern stomach just can’t really digest much of the silliness we are served up by the national broadcasters.

But there’s hope on the horizon. The New Year will see the arrival of Steve Carson, to take up his position as BBC Scotland’s Head of Multi-Platform Commissioning. (Including the new BBC Scotland channel). Yet, it seems appropriate to give the Northern Irelander the heads-up that Scots audiences have special needs when it comes to the wall-mounted flat screen they stare at for four hours a day.

So, things to bear in mind, Steve. We love comedy but not farce (except Joe Orton). Scots simply don’t like silly, prat-fall humour. That’s why we don’t take to Miranda, Alan Partridge and Victoria Wood. (Come on, she wasn’t that funny).

French and Saunders – and Joanna Lumley – may have been all over the Christmas schedules like a mistletoe rash (as a result we should be mass-issued a steroid cream). But 300 Years of French and Saunders was the most apposite comedy title ever created because they looked as though they’ve been running that long.

We’ve certainly had enough of Morecambe and Wise, despite this form of gag-telling comedy dying out about the same time as smallpox. (Although the Beeb 4 bio-pic Eric, Ernie and Me, telling writer Eddie Braben’s story - by Neil Forsyth - was excellent). Dad’s Army, Steve, to us, is soft and comfy, but then so are old socks and eventually they have to be binned.

And do watch out for the bear-trap that is Hogmanay television. You won’t get any major Scots star to appear unless you have a Harvey-like blackmail to use. (Oh for a Connolly or his natural successor, Kevin Bridges; Frankie Boyle is brilliant although you couldn’t let him out at Hogmanay.) And bear this in mind, Steve; it’s claimed we once worshipped Moira Anderson and Andy Stewart but I‘m convinced this was fake news made up by Gaelic immigrants to the Central Belt desperate to establish a tartan TV mafia.

There were some Hogmanay positives. Jackie Bird still looks the same after 19 frocking years. And Scotland’s Big Night Out was imaginative. Yes, the critics are saying Only An Excuse? should have its life-support machine switched off but that’s a bit premature. Some defibrillation in the form of new writers, new ideas perhaps (and less reliance on ned-speak in every second sketch) would help.

As for news, I know you’ve got great current affairs experience Steve, having worked on Newsnight and Panorama, and part of your remit will be to sate the ‘demand’ for the Scottish Six-type news programme. But take it from me; try to be too Scottish with the news and we will sound too parochial. Try to go too local and you will cut into the territory local newspapers serve brilliantly. And consider that journalists in Scotland already cover Scottish news exceptionally well. In short, we need a Scottish Six-type programme like we need a new Willie Rennie.

So what do we like? Because we have a wonderful, chip-on-the-shoulder, soaked-in sarcasm temperament, we like to see that reflected back at us in the programmes we enjoy. Dark ones. We love grit; we love the cheek and the honesty of Still Game, the overview and comment which shines through in Rab C. Nesbitt. We like the surrealism of Limmy and Burnistoun and Gary: tank Commander. The reason Mountain Goats failed Steve was because it looked forced. Two Doors Down on the other hand is dryer than your granda’s throat after a month on the wagon and a bag of Golden Wonder. It’s no surprise the ratings for the likes of Frasier and Cheers, the edgier American comedies, were higher per head than in England.

So what to make, Steve with your £30m budget? Look to the successes and build on them. Take Still Game’s Ford Kiernan and build a comedy-drama around him. Re-boot Rab C. n a newer (cheaper) form where we get to see Rab in a different milieu. Develop nature man Gordon Buchanan. (He’s better than Bear, and warmer.)

You’ve made award-winning docs on the likes of Bertie Ahern, his predecessor Charlie Haughey, Steve. Try similar with the likes of Alex Salmond. And explore some of the fantastic theatre we have in Scotland with a view to creating the Armchair Theatre/Play For Today television on modern form (check out the hour-long plays in venues such as Glasgow’s Oran Mor and the Traverse in Edinburgh.)

And think to be getting into the bio pic business, feature Scots stars with a story to tell such as Stanley Baxter. (Which could be based on an upcoming biography, by a talented Scots journalist). Not that I’m pushing product here, Steve. That would be too tendentious.

Anyway, all you have to do is take the Scots psyche, the thoughts, dreams, fears and loves of a disparate, naturally complaining nation and transfer them into televisual form. All the best.