THERE may be some activities more nerve-shredding than fronting an hour-long, live TV news bulletin. Naked beekeeping, say, or telling Jeremy Clarkson the hotel kitchen is closed for the night.

Still, here we were, the evening after the channel launch the night before, with flagship news programme The Nine about to make its debut with anchors Rebecca Curran and Martin Geissler.

But no pressure, people.

It was such a big deal London had sent network media editor Amol Rajan to Glasgow to explain to the rest of the UK why £32 million of their licence cash was being spent on this new channel. Something about decades of pressure and dissatisfaction with coverage of the independence referendum, apparently.

But no pressure, people.

No pressure, either, about launching this new bulletin in Scotland, the country that watches more BBC than other parts of the UK but is the least satisfied with what it sees. The new show had a few tests to pass. First, how many people watched? On Sunday, Still Game pulled in an impressive 700,000 viewers. Second, did the programme break its own stories? The team has had months to prepare, and if there was ever a time to put some goodies in the shop window it was now. Did it run smoothly, and was it different enough, and Scottish enough, to satisfy those who wanted a Scottish Six?

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Before we arrive at some answers, the important stuff: what were the spring-autumn combo wearing? Geissler’s outfit was Status Quo meets the designer shirt section in John Lewis. Curran had gone for a simple top and trousers coupled with heels so high they made her crossing of the set a thing of wonder and terror. I predict flatties by Thursday. As for the set, a large box in the centre of BBC HQ in Glasgow, it looked like the cell they placed Hannibal Lecter in before he escaped.

The first item was Labour’s backing of a second EU referendum. With the story breaking around 6pm, the show had a real opportunity to steal a march on its 10pm competitors, but despite going to dedicated correspondents in Westminster and Brussels, nothing new emerged.

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Back in the studio, both Curran and Geissler tackled Labour MSP Neil Findlay over Jeremy Corbyn’s shifting position on Europe. The interview was shouty and unedifying, with lots of pen pointing and talking over each other, and that was just the anchors. Findlay wisely left them to it and sailed serenely on.

The exclusive report duly arrived and it was into the buying of cheap, potentially deadly pills on social media. Scotland and a drugs story: jeez, what were the chances of that?

Next was an update on the investigation into the death of Kirsty Maxwell in Benidorm, including an interview with her father. This was followed by a report on medication to prevent HIV infection, then it was over to James Cook, chief news correspondent, in Reykjavik, where he was asking tourists their views on Brexit. So far, so unremarkable.

But Cook had also landed an interview with the country’s Prime Minister, Katrin Jakobsdottir, who spoke well on what it was like to be an independent country yet still have a trading relationship with the EU. This was more like it: an item with obvious relevance to Scotland tackled in an intelligent, engaging way.

Sports presenter Amy Irons had a joint interview with Alex McLeish and Gregor Townsend about the pressures of managing the national teams, which was going fine till the anchors joined the trio on the sofa and, as with the Findlay interview, the conversation became garbled. BBC over-manning strikes again.

The lighter stuff at the end was tired. The disappearing Scottie dogs story had been in the Sunday and Monday papers, ditto the interview with the young Scot who won The Greatest Dancer on Saturday. The last item, about the Oscars, must have been terribly interesting to the one person left on Earth who did not know Olivia Colman had won best actress.

Come 10pm it had been a busy hour but a long one. This was a competent but underwhelming debut. It didn’t feel fast moving and agenda setting or whatever the hype had promised. Nor, the Cook report aside, was it very Scottish. The Nine will have to live a little more dangerously if it is to score more marks out of ten than this.