THE SCOTTISH Broadcasting Commission's report turns out to be well worth the wait. Commissions of this kind are sometimes not much more than talking shops, but on this occasion the work was founded on, and has in turn driven forward, a major debate about the future of Scottish broadcasting in a devolved Scotland.

That debate has become entwined with the SNP's call for separation from the rest of the UK. In particular, the role and legitimacy of the BBC in Scotland has been challenged, with many nationalists calling for it to be broken up along with the UK and replaced by something more authentically Scottish.

The SBC report rejects that argument, with some clarity. Scotland, it states, "has undoubtedly benefited from being part of the overall broadcasting ecology of the UK, which has produced a rich tradition of high production values and public service content". Broadcasting, it adds, "should not be used as a surrogate for the constitutional debate in Scotland The BBC remains the cornerstone of public service broadcasting in Scotland, as in the rest of the UK". And later on, "we do not believe that broadcasting should be devolved".

The report does call for Scottish ministers to have greater power over broadcasting policy, including the appointment of Scottish representatives on UK broadcasting bodies such as the BBC Trust. But there is no truck with the notion of the BBC as an "English Broadcasting Corporation". Those who wonder what Scottish broadcasting would be like if cut off from the resource base of the BBC might take a look at RTE in Ireland. I was there on business earlier in the week, for the first time in a while, and was reminded of just how inferior to the richness and diversity of Scotland's UK-integrated broadcasting Ireland's system is. If a country with Ireland's world-beating cultural reputation, national pride and nearly a century of independence behind it cannot do better than RTE 1 and 2 - most of the most watchable content on these channels is imported from the UK anyway - it is hard to see how Scotland would fare much better on its own.

If the report can be read as a rejection of the view that the BBC should be sacrificed on the altar of Scottish nationalism, it also recognises the urgent need for change in the way the broadcasting industry does things north of the Border. The key recommendation for a public service Scottish Network on digital TV, and with a web presence, is both bold and realistic. Public service status will mean that the Network would not compete with STV for scarce (and getting scarcer) advertising revenue, and that it will be of high quality.

We will need the talent to create all the content, of course, and this is one thing the SBC cannot recommend into existence. Its proposal for a mandatory 8.6% Scottish share of network production for Channel 4 (and for a strengthened commitment by the BBC to boost Scotland's share of its network output) is intended to help, but the problem with politically driven quotas is that they tend to promote mediocrity. Proposals for Channel 4 and the BBC to move substantial parts of their commissioning and network production north of the Border are more likely to be effective in combating the London-centrism of UK broadcasting.

Overall, Platform For Success is a forward-looking attempt to push Scottish broadcasting into the digital era, and to address the tensions and gaps which underpin the separatist case. It stresses the benefits of continued integration with the UK's broadcasting system (which we Scots have been central in the construction of, after all), but warns that those tensions and gaps must be addressed if the pressure for more radical change is to be relieved. The debate has just begun...