Three cheers for the arrival of STV Glasgow on TV

Myself standing in one of my favourite parts of the world at
Pacific Quay, Glasgow.

This week, the arrival of the brand new STV Glasgow television channel marked an important milestone within Scottish broadcasting.

For the first time, a Scottish city has a unique TV channel of it's own that reflects the news, life and people of it's own area. You will not be at all surprised as to what tone I'm going to adopt for this blog post.

It's fair to say that times have been rather regressive in recent years as far as the broadcasting industry is concerned north of the border. Yet there is hope that the tide is changing direction for the better. The main thing that impresses me so much about this new television channel is the emphasis it places on serving it's main audience. The viewer knows without any doubt that Glasgow is the main focus and it's headline programme, The Riverside Show, reflects this point really brilliantly.

It's main presenters David Farrell and Jennifer Reoch symbolise what the programme and channel is all about. You can hear it in their accents and see it in their personalities. I cannot confirm for certain whether they were both born or brought up within Glasgow, but I can certainly say that the Glaswegian character in both of them is well and truly alive. It's also worth adding that Storm Huntley and Colin Stone have proven to be excellent members of the presenting/reporting team on the main STV Glasgow evening programme.

The only drawback I can think of at the moment is the lack of new programming that is available. I was expecting more than the main evening programme and the football phone-in that follows. But to be honest, I'm being a bit harsh here. It's only early days and already there seems to be a diverse range of programming from comprehensive news coverage throughout the day to the return of Take The High Road (although it's past episodes of the famous soap) and that football phone-in with Peter Martin and Alan Rough. There seems to be something for everybody.

Viewer and channel must understand each other and, despite only launching on Monday, STV Glasgow gets the people of the city. I'll conclude by saying that I am seriously impressed with how the team who produce The Riverside Show manage to fill in two hours of on air time with a diverse range of guests, features and stories. That is not an easy task to fulfil, particularly if it is for a programme that goes out daily.

So a huge congratulations to each and every one of the team at STV Glasgow and STV for making this new channel work well within it's early days - I wanted to name every single member of the team, but I'm fearful that I'm going to miss somebody out so I'll just lavish my praises upon everybody! Long may this new channel stay alive within our TV listings.