Scottish Independence Debate Meltdown as STV Broadcaster Loses Live Stream Numerous Times

Scottish Independence Debate Meltdown as STV Broadcaster Loses Live Stream Numerous Times

In what may well be proved to be the first insular act of an independent country, viewers in the rest of the United Kingdom outside Scotland were unable to watch tonight’s live debate on the hot topic of Scottish Independence. 

As former UK Chancellor Alistair Darling wiped the floor with Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, anyone outside Scotland could not watch it on terrestrial, satellite or cable television – a bizarre decision considering that the BBC, ITV and Sky were all airing repeat TV shows tonight.

To add insult to injury, the Scottish Television’s website went down, meaning that it was impossible to watch it at all outside Scotland. 

Anyone familiar with the Glasgow University Debating Union would have recognised the far less friendly atmosphere than the Farage/Clegg Europe debates earlier this year. From what those outside Scotland could see, the debate got very spicy.

The former Director of Communications to Tony Blair, Alistair Campbell said on twitter:

Andrew Neil, the Chairman of the Spectator Magazine was also angry about the failures of STV:

Earlier he had complained that the whole programme was disrespectful because adverts had been inserted by STV:

Professor Brian Cox the eminent physicist and former pop star, was unhappy that the debate was only on the STV Player outside Scotland:

As the STV Player disaster unfolds, pressure is likely to be brought to bear on both the ITV group, of which STV is a part, and the BBC for not showing the debate on any of their channels. 

Viewers around the UK may be asking themselves tonight: if the Scottish can’t even successfully broadcast an independence debate how can they run and independent country? Not least because the website Zattoo, based out of Ann Arbor, Maryland in the United States, did manage to stream the whole debate from STV. It is unclear whether this is legal.

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