Paxman victor in Newsnight battle

Jeremy Paxman, the combative Newsnight presenter and English nationalist, has put one over the auld enemy. His bitter campaign against the 'damn fool' decision to give Scotland a 20-minute 'opt-out' at the end of the flagship BBC2 news programme has forced corporation bosses to scrap the 'Jock slot'.

BBC news chiefs will ditch the Newsnight opt-out next year and replace it with a longer Scottish news bulletin at the end of the main evening news on BBC1. They say 10 minutes of news on BBC1 in prime time is worth 20 minutes at 11pm on BBC2.

The plan is designed to buy off Paxman, who has publicly embarrassed the corporation by campaigning against the opt-out, but it will provoke a bitter row between BBC Scotland and Tony Hall, the London-based head of BBC news and current affairs. One senior broadcaster at BBC Scotland told The Observer : 'After devolution we need more Scottish news for Scottish viewers, not less. If London thinks it can scrap our Newsnight , it had better be ready for a long fight.'

Scotland's Newsnight opt-out first went on air last autumn after plans for a Scottish version of the Six O'Clock News were scrapped. Although the BBC said it demonstrated the corporation's commitment to devolution, Paxman, who has ridiculed the Scottish chattering classes as smug, made it clear he loathed it.

He described it as 'a damn fool idea' which disrupted the flow of an in-depth news programme where many items are more than 15 minutes long. One week after it started he said: 'The Scots can have whatever they want, but this dog's breakfast is having a calamitous effect on the whole programme.' On air he lampooned Scots for 'talking among themselves' after 11pm. 'Well, now it's long gone 11 o'clock, children are in bed and Scots are talking about whatever they're talking about.'

Paxman's comments made him a hate figure north of the border. Newspapers accused him of deliberately letting interviews drag on after 11pm so that the Scottish opt-out started up to six minutes late. But he kept up his battle. In an interview to mark Newsnight's 20th anniversary, he said: 'The thing was cooked up as a way of buying off the demand for a Scottish Six O'Clock News , and the sooner it is dead and buried the better.'

Confirming the plan to ditch the opt-out, one BBC figure told The Observer : 'We wanted to give Britain's nations and regions a voice in network programmes but the Scottish Newsnight has been an untidy compromise.

'We reckon that extra minutes at the end of the BBC1 evening news - which attracts a much larger audience than Newsnight - are worth 20 minutes after 11pm on BBC2.'

Friends of Paxman say he is 'sniggering very loudly' over the BBC's decision. 'He has always regarded the opt-out as a millstone around the programme's neck,' one said. 'It's great to know it's going.'

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