The United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) has been given a boost after watchdog Ofcom ruled that it should be treated as a major party in England and Wales by broadcasters covering this year's European elections.
The decision means Ukip will be given the same status as the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats for election broadcasts and news coverage of the May 22 contest.
But Ukip's limited support in Scotland means it will not have to be treated as a major party by broadcasters north of the Border or in news coverage focusing solely on Scottish constituencies.
Ukip director of communications Patrick O'Flynn said: "This Ofcom decision was a fairly obvious one given the success of Ukip over the past few years.
"It makes no sense for patterns of coverage to be based on patterns of electoral support that pertained four years ago. Ukip is a major player in British politics now."
The Ofcom ruling means that broadcasters transmitting party election broadcasts on a UK or Great Britain-wide basis, such as Channel 5 in the European parliamentary elections, will be obliged to treat Ukip as a major party, in the same way they would the Tories, Labour or Lib Dems.
STV will not be required to treat Ukip as a major party for the purposes of broadcasting Scotland-only party election broadcasts because Nigel Farage's party has "low levels of support" in the country, Ofcom said.
But ITV Wales will have to treat Ukip as a major party due to the "significant levels of support" there.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article