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Our screen sector is booming but why does it all feel so hollow in the heart?

3 0
10.10.2025

Scotland's screen sector has experienced great financial success through hit shows like Outlander, and is set to reach a £1 billion industry. But just imagine if we turned our attention and focus on the artistic and cultural value of Scotland's screens, writes Derek McArthur.

Scotland’s burgeoning screen sector is aiming to be a billion-pound industry within the next five years.

The rhetoric is usually one of jobs and growth, of tourist and global profile. We have become, to our cultural detriment, accountants of our imagination, mesmerised by impressive numbers and famous names.

In the midst of it, we have forgotten to consider what of artistic value we are producing. What are we doing to deepen the core and promote a cultural understanding through such a potent form as the screen?

Let’s be clear with the current state of Scotland’s screen sector: the much-vaunted production boom is, in large part, a servicing boom. Scotland has transformed into a spectacular, skilled, and geographically convenient soundstage. For other people and places.

And as Claire Duffy, founder of the Glasgow Telly Festival, pointed out to our series this week, what is our own is often just what others perceive us as. Scottish television drama is littered with........

© Herald Scotland