Scottish broadcaster STV is cutting 60 jobs including journalists as advertising revenue declines.
The plans include the creation of one 6pm news programme across the two licences held by STV, covering central and north of Scotland. These are the two Channel 3 licences not held by ITV.
Currently STV Central broadcasts from Glasgow while STV North broadcasts from Aberdeen, with the latter set to be cut.
STV chief executive Rufus Radcliffe said the cost savings programme was “necessary to strengthen our financial resilience and position STV for long-term growth”.
The broadcaster announced on Thursday that in the six months to 30 June, advertising revenue was down 10% from £50.7m to £45.6m.
Total revenue was steady on £90m for the half year but STV fell into a post-tax loss, from a profit of £7.1m in H1 2024 to a loss of £0.3m. Operating profit was down 49% from £6.5m to £3.3m.
The broadcaster’s TV production arm STV Studios saw revenue growth of 13% to £42.2m in the half year despite a “difficult commissioning market”.
STV’s proposals are aiming to deliver cost savings of £3m per year with around £2.5m delivered in 2026 at a cost of about £1m. These savings are additional to the target of £5m per year by the end of 2026 following a three-year plan.
Nick McGowan-Lowe, NUJ national organiser for Scotland, said: “These are devastating cuts – not just affecting hard working local journalists, but for STV viewers generally, particularly those in the north of Scotland who will face seeing much loved local coverage axed.
“While there is no doubt that STV faces financial pressures and a decline of studio productions, none of that can be blamed on the hard-working journalists at STV News, whose work online and on the news bulletins, including the flagship News at 6, regularly outperforms their competitors.
“These proposed cuts threaten the high quality of local and national journalism produced by STV News staff across Scotland, and we will be meeting both with our members and with STV management to discuss next steps in opposing these cuts and protecting jobs and quality journalism.”
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