Viewing figures for STV has gone up since it made changes to its news operations, said chief executive Rufus Radcliffe.
The company shed 60 roles in the restructuring of its news output, mainly in the north east. It prompted an angry backlash from the local community and parliamentarians, and forced industrial action by the editorial staff.
Following a series of parliamentary hearings and discussions with trade unions, the new 6pm news programmes launched on 13 July.
Mr Radcliffe said: “Our volume of viewing and share of viewing have gone up since we implemented the changes.
“This has also allowed us to accelerate the amount of digital news that we are doing, so digital video views in the first half are up 31%.”
Speaking to Daily Business ahead of MPs grilling the regulator Ofcom on the changes later today, Mr Radcliffe said: “We made the changes we needed to make.”
He said this put public service news on a sustainable cost footing and expanded the digital news service.
“We made the right decision and it is resonating well with audiences,” he said.
After announcing a 27% plunge in first half revenue, Mr Radcliffe admitted that he does not expect trading conditions to improve in the second half of its financial year.
However, he said there were “no plans for further restructuring across the group. We’ve made significant cost savings. We are now a broader and more diversified business.”
He said the Audience division was performing well. While advertising was also soft, the radio station, which launched in January, has attracted 37 advertisers, including 10 which are new to the STV Group. STV Adapt, targeting SMEs, will launch later this year.
The company announced last month that it is a top ten commercial radio station in Scotland, and he confirmed that it was ninth in a list of ‘hundreds’.
“We believed there was a gap in the market for a mainstream commercial radio station in Scotland and we were confident and we have delivered,” he said. “It is still early days, but it has got off to a good start.”
Studios, which saw revenue fall from £42.2m to £15.5m, was suffering from delays to commissioning decisions.
“The market is soft for everyone. Commissioning decisions are slow, but we have a strong portfolio and we are controlling what we can,” he said.
One big reason for the slump in revenue was that there were a number of high value dramas in the first hlaf last year.
A number of shows are in “advanced development”, he said. Blue Lights is returning for a fourth series and it has been commissioned for Celebrity Catchphrase and Bridge of Lies.
C4 job cuts
Channel 4 is poised to announce a big reduction in headcount with around a quarter of its workforce potentially facing redundancy.
The broadcaster has called an all-staff meeting for Wednesday at which chief executive Priya Dogra is expected to reveal the loss of about 300 jobs, according to The Guardian.
Based on its 2025 annual report, C4 employs 1,276 staff and its £122m salary bill is £2m higher than the previous year.
The announcement will cover the size, structure and operation of C4 and is expected to also include a change in its content strategy.
Last year C4’s content budget was £640m and the expected strategy is to reprioritise that spending rather than significantly reduce it.
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