The Real MacKay

Infobox Television
show_name = The Real MacKay


caption =
show_name_2 = "White Not MacKay"
"Not The Real MacKay"
genre = Video blog,
Regional News
runtime =
creator =
presenter = John MacKay
(Main presenter),
Louise White,
Heather Simpson
producer = STV Central
channel = stv.tv
country = SCO
first_aired = June 4, 2007
last_aired = Present
num_episodes = 309 (as of October 10, 2008)
related = "Northern Exposure",
"Weather Blether"

"The Real MacKay" is a supplementary video blog for "Scotland Today", STV Central's regional news programme for central Scotland. The first blog was produced on Monday June 4, 2007, and as of October 10 2008, 309 episodes have been made available.

The blog is presented and produced by John MacKay, the main newsreader on "Scotland Today", and a new episode is produced almost every weekday from STV's headquarters at Pacific Quay in Glasgow. When Louise White is standing in for MacKay, the blog is renamed "White Not MacKay". When both MacKay and White are off, the blog is renamed "Not The Real MacKay" and presented by either Heather Simpson or other Scotland Today staff.

Previously, Stephen Jardine was the main stand-in presenter for John on "Scotland Today" as well as the blogs, but has since moved to work on "The Five Thirty Show", a new region-wide news programme. Louise White was later confirmed as the new Friday presenter.

The blog has also been guest presented by Entertainment correspondent Grant Lauchlan, reporters Vicky Lee, Debi Edward, Karen Greenshields, Gordon Chree and Nicol Nicolson, weather forecaster Seán Batty and production journalists Nick Porter & Kirstin Anderson.

About the blog

"The Real MacKay" takes a mostly light-hearted look behind-the-scenes at "Scotland Today", previews some of the stories to be featured in the main 6pm programme and includes interviews with reporters and production staff.

Key moments

Occasionally, "The Real MacKay" has featured other aspects of STV Central and provided extra coverage of news stories.

*A specially extended edition was produced to celebrate the 50th anniversary of STV's flagship sports programme, "Scotsport".
*By request of the STV website's forums, the presentation department was featured on two separate occasions - the latter featuring an appearance from chief announcer Maggie Lavender.
*Also by request of the forums, "Scotland Today's" opt-out for the East was featured on three separate occasions - an 'as live' link-up to the Edinburgh newsroom and behind-the-scenes tours of the Edinburgh facilities and the production gallery (which is based in Glasgow).
*An extended interview with former world motor racing champion, Sir Jackie Stewart.
*A special programme on how the Scotland Today newsroom covered the 2007 terrorist attack at Glasgow International Airport.
*A question and answer session with Elizabeth Partyka, managing director of SMG Productions.

White Not MacKay

On 9 January 2008, John MacKay announced on the STV website's forums that newsreader Louise White would become the regular Friday anchor of "Scotland Today". Louise also presents/produces a Friday edition of the blog entitled "White Not MacKay", in which she answers questions about STV Central from the website forums and features clips from the archives along with reports and interviews on various aspects of STV.

The launch of "White Not MacKay" followed the success of "Ask Kirstin", a similar feature series on the STV North online video blog, "Northern Exposure", presented by Kirstin Gove. The first episode was uploaded on 11 January 2008.

External links

* [http://www.stv.tv/content/news/blogs/real_mackay "The Real MacKay"] at stv.tv
* [http://realmackay.blogspot.com/ The Real MacKay blogspot]
*" List of episodes"