Screen matches free to air – poll

SCOTLAND'S international football matches should be screened free-to-air, most fans believe.

A survey published yesterday shows that 80 per cent of viewers object to Scotland's home games being broadcast live on subscription channels.

Sky Sports currently owns the rights to show matches at Hampden, while away matches were broadcast on now-defunct Setanta UK..

Culture minister Fiona Hyslop said of the figures, contained in a new survey on attitudes to broadcasting: "There continues to be overwhelming support in favour of the Scottish national football team's competitive fixtures being shown on free-to-air terrestrial channels."

She added that the Scottish Government had recently urged the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport to include these games on its list of events that should be protected for free broadcast coverage.

The survey also found 58 per cent of people were either very or fairly satisfied with BBC1 while 25 per cent were fairly or very dissatisfied. Fifty-three per cent were either fairly or very satisfied with ITV.

Satisfaction with the way Scotland is reported on UK news programmes has fallen, however. A 2008 survey found 49 per cent of Scots were either fairly satisfied or very satisfied, but in 2009 this dropped to 44 per cent.

Ms Hyslop said: "The issue around clarity and relevance of UK-wide news programming remains a major concern."

The survey also revealed a fall in demand for a one-hour evening news programme from Scotland, which would feature UK and international news from a Scottish perspective.

In 2008 a survey showed that 53 per cent of people wanted a so-called "Scottish Six" news programme while in 2009 the figure was 49 per cent.

The 2009 study found 40 per cent of people were in favour of the current set-up of two separate 30-minute evening news programmes, with one of these for all of the UK and the other being for Scotland.