The broadcaster caused uproar when they decided to stop showing the briefings daily last week. The First Minister voiced her disappointment with the BBC over the decision, along with many Scots. It comes as Scotland has begun seeing a surge in coronavirus cases. It also follows Ms Sturgeon defending her briefings from opposition MSPs, who claimed the First Minister was using them to push an SNP agenda.
The BBC has confirmed it will continue to show Ms Sturgeon’s briefings on coronavirus daily.
They said: “With the pandemic still a major cause for public concern, we will, over the coming weeks and as we have done this week, look to cover the ScotGov health briefings live on TV.”
A spokesman for the SNP replied and said: “We welcome this sensible decision.”
The daily briefings are shown on BBC One Scotland and BBC Scotland on TV, as well as being streamed online on the BBC News site and played on BBC Radio Scotland.
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The decision to axe some broadcasts of the briefings came just a week ago.
BBC Scotland bosses claimed the decision was made to ensure a “consistent approach to coverage of the various government briefings across the UK nations”.
They also said they would not broadcast daily, and would instead decide whether or not to air the public briefings based on “editorial merit”.
BBC Scotland was also under pressure Scottish Tories and Labour to stop airing the broadcasts.
Ms Sturgeon was disappointed by the initial decision, and said it would deny crucial information to vulnerable communities.
She added: “We are clearly at a point where the virus is accelerating again as we go into winter.
“So it becomes more important, not less important to continue that very direct communication.
She went on to say not everyone Scottish person has access to the internet, and added: “What has struck me during the period these briefings have been televised, is they have been particularly important among some sections of the population who don’t routinely go on the internet or watch things on their phone – and that tends to be older people.”
Ian Small, head of public policy and corporate affairs at BBC Scotland, claimed the daily briefings didn’t always contain “crucial” information.
Speaking on BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme, he said: “Let’s be absolutely clear on that, that we are not removing the coronavirus briefings, simply not true.
“If you’ve been watching this week, they are on all of this week, what we have said is that we’ve taken a decision that we will look across all of our output, we’ll look at these briefings, and we will then start to consider, which, as we move forward, which we will take relative to news value because not everyone will carry crucial bits of information.”
He then defended the plan and said the broadcaster was “taking a more measured look, see exactly how best to cover going forward”.
