IT’S a big day for internet TV in Scotland today, with stv’s web TV channel broadcasting its first made-for-the-web programme and a new internet TV station launching.
The stv programme is a celebration of Robert Burns, ‘Burns and a’ that!’, described as “a very special Burns Supper”, to be presented by former River City soap star, Donald Pirie.
The supper takes place in Poosie Nansies pub in Mauchline, written about by Burns himself. Guests include the president of the World Burns Federation, Angus Middleton, and the honorary president of the Mauchline Burns Club, Ian Lyell.
The channel is called Scotland on TV. It already features well-known stv titles from the archive, such as Weir’s Way and Take the High Road. However, Burns and a’ that! signals a move to introduce more made-for-web programming, targeted at a global audience.
Around 40 per cent of the channel’s audience is based in North America, and – a perhaps surprising – eight per cent live in Germany.
In addition, Scotland on TV offers viewers two daily bulletins from stv’s newsrooms, in Glasgow and Aberdeen, so wherever they are in the world, in Scotland or abroad, viewers can access the news from Scotland at any time.
Meanwhile, sit1.tv is partly the brainchild of Sharon McAllister, best known for appearing in the last series of the TV business talent hit, The Apprentice, on BBC 2.
It launches today with The Recruit, inviting aspiring TV presenters and programme makers to send in a video application for a work placement at sit.tv.
A selection of the applications are then put up to a public vote, and the person whose video receives the most votes gets to work on sit.tv, their efforts themselves to be filmed and screened.
The station features six channels: People, Time Out, Style, Music, Business and Your Clips.
