SCOTLAND'S new television channel will draw on the entire resources of the BBC, its director general has pledged.
However Tony Hall, appearing at the Scottish Parliament's culture committee, did not commit to spending all of the BBC licence fee raised north of the border, within five years, as a recent report suggested.
Lord Hall said the plans for a new 9pm hour-long bulletin on the new channel, encompassing Scottish, UK and international news "could teach a few lessons to news broadcasters around the world".
Read more: BBC to launch new TV channel for Scotland
The channel is due to go on air next autumn, and will entail the filling of 80 new journalist posts.
The announcement of the channel does, however, mean the rejection of the long-mooted 'Scottish Six' evening news bulletin.
Lord Hall told MSPs that putting the new flagship news bulletin out at 9pm, when there are no other news programmes broadcast, would allow producers in Scotland to draw on the global resources available to the BBC.
The director general made the pledge when he appeared alongside BBC Scotland director Donalda MacKinnon and director of nations and regions Ken MacQuarrie.
Lord Hall said: "I think the BBC is a team and I very much want Donalda to draw on the resources of the whole BBC, behind BBC Scotland the channel and all the things we do.
"I know that we can put the entire resources, journalist resources, global as well as UK, behind a news at nine o'clock for an hour.
Read more: BBC to launch new TV channel for Scotland
"Talking to the teams yesterday, I think they can do something which is really new and fresh, using all the resources of BBC, which I think could teach a few lessons to news broadcasters around the world. I'm really excited by that proposition."
The committee's convener, Joan McAlpine, questioned the amount of resources being put behind the new BBC Scotland, and said: "You spent £60 million, for example, commissioning Match of the Day rights, so £30 million, it doesn't go that far."
Ms McAlpine went on to state that currently only 55% of the licence-fee fundsraised in Scotland is spent in the country was "still a long way behind Northern Ireland at 75% and Wales at 95%"
Lord Hall conceded 2015-16 was "not a good year" for the proportion of licence-fee money spent in Scotland, but said that would rise to 68% with the new channel.
He said if 100% was spent in Scotland you "begin to lose a bit the unity of the BBC" and draw funding away from the World Service and BBC 1.
He said: "We're moving and we're shifting, and I think the challenge now to BBC Scotland and ourselves is to see whether in terms of the network spending we can do more than we are currently committing to do.
Read more: BBC to launch new TV channel for Scotland
"That depends on good ideas, that depends on winning commissions."
The BBC will increase its spending on news in Scotland to more than £7m a year, Lord Hall added.
"That's going to benefit not just the new nine o'clock news but also Reporting Scotland, BBC Alba and Radio nan Gaidheal," he said.
Lord Hall said the move would go "some way to raising the amount of licence fee spent in Scotland versus what is actually raised here".
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