The Digital Revolution!

[Annie]

Scots are slow to join the digital revolution Thursday April 27, 03:00 AM

SCOTLAND is lagging behind the rest of the UK in embracing the digital age, according to a new snapshot of the nation's media habits from Ofcom, the telecoms watchdog.

It is a portrait studded with contradictions: Scots watch large amounts of digital television, yet the take-up of digital TV lags behind the UK; we are slower in getting online, but once there demonstrate a voracious appetite for high-speed broadband.

The 74-page report released yesterday analyses how Scotland consumes TV, radio, the internet, telecoms and press. Key findings point to a potential appetite for a range of digital services and suggest that, once converted, Scots manage new technology aplomb. The issue appears to be one of getting them to the point of conversion.

Online, Scotland is lagging behind the rest of the UK in both internet use (51 per cent) and PC ownership (57 per cent). That compares with the rest of the UK at 57 per cent and 66 per cent respectively. However, levels of broadband take-up at 60 per cent match the UK average, and are higher than Wales and Northern Ireland.

Once online, the Scots appear to have different interests to their English counterparts - 30 per cent of them using the web to download music, video and software compared to 19 per cent south of the Border. However, the Ofcom study doesn't record whether those music downloads are from paid-for legal sites like iTunes or whether they are being driven by the illicit trade in MP3 swapping.

The Ofcom study also suggests the Government will have to step up its campaign to promote the benefits of digital TV to Scots viewers. The country has a 60 per cent take-up for all three types of digital TV - Freeview, satellite and cable - which leaves Scotland slightly behind the UK average of 65 per cent (that figure, taken from last year's statistics, is now around 70 per cent).

The figures on take-up of digital TV in Scotland are likely to be an alarm call for Digital UK, the company charged by the Government with leading the switch from analogue to digital. The countdown is now under way in the Border region of Scotland, which becomes the first in the UK to make the switch in 2008, with the rest of Scotland following two years later.

Vicki Nash, director of Ofcom Scotland, says: "You have to remember that, overall, 70 per cent of the country has already taken up digital TV voluntarily. However, we recognise there is a job of work to be done."

Once wired up to digital TV, Scots viewers watch more of it than anyone else in the UK - a hefty 22 hours a week compared to a UK average of 19 hours. That TV addict pattern tallies with a general trend that the further north you go in Britain, the more television is watched.

When it comes to phone use, it appears Scotland is ahead of the national trend, which is seeing traditional fixed land lines die away in favour of increased mobile use. Household use of fixed lines in Scotland is 87 per cent, compared to the UK figure of 91 per cent. Ofcom believes that, in Scotland, more younger people are simply choosing to live with a mobile number, which might fit with a pattern of late teens and early 20s moving around as they find work and build careers.

Overall, is Scotland languishing in the slow lane? Not so, argues Nash, who cites the case of online use. "There are signs that Scots are slightly behind the times in getting a PC, but once they get it they can't wait to get on broadband."

When it comes to traditional media - print - there are reasons for optimism in Scotland, despite turbulent times being endured by the industry across the UK. Three quarters of Scots say they use newspapers to keep up with national news, a figure above that of the UK's 70 per cent average. Paradoxically, Scots appear to be more cynical about what they read. Around 45 per cent of Scots say they trust national or regional papers aimed at the Scottish market, below the UK average of 49 per cent, and trust levels in Scotland fall to 36 per cent for broadsheets. Tabloids have got even more of a job to do with trust levels of 14 per cent for the red-tops.

Television news has the edge in Scotland when it comes to trust and popularity. The BBC is the most trusted news source on screen, just ahead of ITN and Channel 4. Five News - whose flagship evening bulletins are presented by the identifiably Scottish Kirsty Young - is more trusted by the Scots audience than viewers elsewhere in the UK.

Scots viewers appear less enamoured of the world of 24-hour rolling news channels than the rest of the country. BBC News 24 and Sky News get lower than average trust ratings from Scots viewers. That level of belief falls even further for some of the newer and more niche news providers on satellite. Fox News, the American service owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, is trusted by only 13 per cent of Scots, while Al Jazeera, the middle-eastern network known for its controversial broadcasts of messages from al-Qaeda figures, is regarded as honest by just 5 per cent of the Scots TV audience.

By: FERGUS SHEPPARD -- 27-Apr-06