 Logo used since 2021 | |
| Country | United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Scotland[a] |
| Headquarters | Pacific Quay (Glasgow) andStornoway |
| Programming | |
| Language | Scottish Gaelic[b] |
| Picture format | 1080iHDTV[c] (downscaled to576i for theSDTV feed) |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | BBC andMG Alba |
| Sister channels | BBC One (inScotland) BBC Scotland BBC Two BBC Three BBC Four BBC News BBC Parliament CBBC CBeebies |
| History | |
| Launched | 19 September 2008; 17 years ago (2008-09-19) |
| Links | |
| Website | Official website |
| Availability | |
| Terrestrial | |
| Freeview (Scotland only) | Channel 7 (SD) |
| Streaming media | |
| BBC iPlayer | Watch live (UK only) |
| TVPlayer | Watch live (UK only) |
BBC Alba is aScottish Gaelic-languagefree-to-air public broadcast television channel jointly owned by theBBC andMG Alba. The channel was launched on 19 September 2008 and is on-air for up to seven hours a day. The nameAlba is the Scottish Gaelic name forScotland. The station is unique in that it is the first channel to be delivered under a BBC licence by a partnership and was also the first multi-genre channel to come entirely from Scotland with almost all of its programmes made in Scotland.[1][2][3]
As of 2012,[update] BBC Alba had an average viewership of 637,000 adults over the age of 16 in Scotland each week.[4]
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In 2007, theBBC Trust opened a consultation for a Gaelic digital service in partnership with theGaelic Media Service. Following the BBC Trust consultation in November 2007, theAudience Council Scotland recommended their support for the creation of the service on 7 December 2007, stating that the Trust should pursue carriage of the service on digital terrestrial television and that the existing "Gaelic zone" programming onBBC Scotland should remain after the launch.[5][6] On 28 January 2008, the BBC Trust gave the go-ahead for a Gaelic channel.[citation needed]
The channel began broadcasting on satellite at 9:00 pm on 19 September 2008 with a launch video featuring a new rendition of theRunrig song,Alba. The first part of a livecèilidh fromSkye, presented by Mary Ann Kennedy, was followed by a specially produced comedy-drama entitledEilbheas (Elvis), starringGreg Hemphill asElvis Presley, at 9:30 pm. The channel's first independent commission,Peter Manuel – Deireadh an Uilc? (Peter Manuel - The End of Evil?), a drama-documentary produced bySTV Productions, was shown at 10:30 pm before the opening night closed with the second half of the livecèilidh from Skye. The launch night was simulcast onBBC Two Scotland between 9:00 pm and 10:30 pm and a launch event was held at theNational Museum of Scotland, which was recorded by the channel's news serviceAn Là.[citation needed]
A study carried out for the channel indicated that 650,000 people watched BBC Alba per week in the first two months of broadcasting, in spite of only being available to around a third of Scots.[7] After being subject to a review by the BBC Trust and a recommendation from theAudience Council Scotland in 2009, a plan was announced to broadcast the channel onFreeview, in Scotland only, from the digital switchover (2010) under the proviso that reach of the service extended beyond the core Gaelic audience to 250,000. This was approved by the BBC Trust on 27 December 2010[8] and the service launched on Freeview on 8 June 2011.[9] The channel also launched on Virgin Media (Scotland only) on 18 May 2011,[10][11] and was made available nationwide on the Virgin Media and Sky platforms, the former on 6 November 2012.[citation needed]
BBC Alba is broadcast for up to seven hours a day in theUnited Kingdom on satellite platformsSky andFreesat, cable providerVirgin Media and on digital terrestrial providerFreeview in Scotland only. BBC Alba simulcasts the BBC's Gaelic-language radio serviceBBC Radio nan Gàidheal as well during the day after midnight (1am on Saturday night), which in turn simulcastsBBC Radio Scotland overnight. Programmes are also available to watch on the Internet live through services including theBBC iPlayer and some programmes are available for 30 days (or more) after broadcast on this service and on catch-up services of some other services. UnlikeBBC Three andBBC Four, BBC Alba is an evenings-only channel that does not start broadcasting until 7 pm and does not timeshare with other channels, except on Freeview, whereRadio 1,Radio 2,Radio 3, Radio nan Gàidheal andWorld Service all go off air in Scotland on Freeview whenever BBC Alba is broadcasting. On 8 September 2022, BBC Alba had to pause programming at around 6:30pm due to thedeath of Queen Elizabeth II. Normal programming resumed the following day at 7pm.[citation needed]
The channel is financed from theBBC Scotland budget and by MG Alba, which itself is financed by theScottish Government and theUK government. In 2011/12 the BBC spent £8 million on the channel, of which £5 million was used for programming.[12] MG Alba spends the majority of its budget (£12.4 million in 2008/09) on the Gaelic Digital Service.[citation needed]
BBC Alba continuity presentation and channel management is based in Stornoway, while the news services are based in Inverness.[13]BBC Scotland's headquarters atPacific Quay in Glasgow is used to transmit the programmes.[14]
The BBC have confirmed that BBC Alba HD will launch online and on various platforms between October 2021 and the end of 2022.[15]
BBC Alba combinestelevision,radio andon-line programme content. BBC Alba broadcasts more Scottish sport than any other channel, with over three hours a week offootball,rugby andshinty. In addition, the station also broadcasts a live news programme every day, with the weekend news provision beginning in 2018.[citation needed]
Output on the channel consists of news, current affairs, sport, drama, documentary, entertainment, education, religion and children's programming, broadcast on most days between 5 pm and midnight.[citation needed]
Children's programmes are shown for two hours every weekday, between 17:00 and 19:00. Starting in 2018, a rebranding initiative saw the first hour presented as 'CBeebies Alba' and the second hour as 'CBBC Alba'. They are the Scottish Gaelic versions of theCBBC andCBeebies channels.[16]
Most of the adult programming on BBC Alba contains on-screenEnglishsubtitles. For logistical reasons, live broadcasts (including the news) are not subtitled, although certain events (e.g. the annualHogmanay broadcastBliadhna Mhath Ùr) have scripted elements that are subtitled, while interviews and ad-libbed lines are not.[citation needed]
Children's programmes are not subtitled. Controversially, no English dialogue on the channel is subtitled into Scottish Gaelic.[citation needed]
BBC Alba concentrates on four sports:football,rugby,shinty,[17] andcurling.[18]
During the 2009–10 season, the station broadcast one fullScottish Premier League game every Saturday night.[19] The game selected was always one not covered by either liveSky Sports or on an on-demand basis byBT Vision and was shown three hours after the end of the match.[20] The matches only included Gaelic commentary along with English subtitles.[citation needed]The channel reached an agreement with theScottish Football League to broadcast livefootball games during the 2008–09 season. This began with the final of theChallenge Cup, which was also sponsored by MG Alba.[21] BBC Alba then started broadcastingFirst Division games, beginning with the match betweenAirdrie United andClyde on 22 February 2009.[21]
BBC Alba also struck a deal with the Scottish rugby authorities to show one liveScottish Premiership Division One match every weekend.[22]
For the 2015–16 season, BBC Alba will show 20 live matches (excludingRangers) from either the2015-16 Scottish Championship (including the play-off final),League 1 orLeague 2, as well as four matches from theScottish Challenge Cup. The station also altered their coverage ofScottish Premiership highlights, showing one-hour highlights of two non-televised matches on a Saturday and Sunday night at 22:00. Other football coverage includes all Scotland U21s andWomen's matches, as well as the final of the2015-16 Scottish Junior Cup.[citation needed]
In 2010 BBC Alba bought the rights forCeltic League rugby jointly with public service broadcasters from the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Wales.[23]
In May 2020, BBC Alba broadcast the last five matches ofWomen's Bundesliga.[24]
A number of independent companies have been commissioned to produce content for the channel, or have productions currently[when?] airing. These include:
The Gaelic community, including writersAonghas MacNeacail,[25][26]Angus Peter Campbell,[27] Lisa Storey[27] and musicianAllan MacDonald,[citation needed] have criticised the non-availability of Gaelic subtitles, and the emphasis on English-language interviews and reportage in the channel's content for adults.[28] Writers and authors were reported by the BBC Gaelic news service as setting up a campaign, GAIDHLIG.TV, to increase Gaelic content on BBC Alba. The decision to introduce 'red button facilities' to allow viewers to switch to English-language sports commentary, first announced in August 2014 for rugby and theGuinness Pro12 series, was heavily criticised by the Gaelic community.[29] The criticism resulted in MG Alba announcing publicly in theWest Highland Free Press that the 'red button option' for English-language commentary would not expand to other sports or areas of the channel.[30]
Between its launch in September 2008 and the beginning of 2010, the BBC Alba channel lost a third of its viewers, but its number of viewers remains five times larger than the size of the Gaelic speech community in Scotland (just over 58,000[31]). The historian Michael Fry has argued that many of its viewers only watch it for the football coverage, because "you don't need Gaelic to watch football", and that in this way the channel is "cheating".[32] The model is, however, both common and intentional as it is on comparable channels such as theIrish language channelTG4, theBasque broadcasterEITB or theWelsh channelS4C. In Europe, these channels' main mission is not commercial, but the promotion of the original languages.[citation needed]
Some criticism had been levied over the channel's addition to Freeview, primarily due to the BBC's original plan (with acceptance from the BBC Executive) to remove all 13 BBC Radio channels from Freeview for Scottish viewers over the period that BBC Alba will be shown on Freeview (between 5 pm and midnight); however the criticism has not been directed at the BBC's decision to extend BBC ALBA to Freeview in principle.[8][33] On 19 May 2011, it was reported that the BBC has backed down on the plans, after the BBC had "managed to reengineer facilities" to allowBBC Radio 1Xtra,5 Live and6 Music to continue to broadcast on a 24-hour basis.[34] The three stations were chosen because they have the highest evening audience ratings on digital television of the seven BBC radio stations unavailable on FM radio.[35]On 2 December 2013, it was confirmed that more radio stations were made available 24 hours in Scotland, but with some trade-offs.[36]BBC Radio 4,4 Extra,5 Sports Extra,Radio Scotland andAsian Network were restored, but as noted in the blog with some technical trade-offs, such as mono audio rather than stereo during the evenings on the radio stations mentioned and the audio bit rate of the TV channels in Scotland on Freeview reduced to 192 kbit/s from 256 kbit/s.[citation needed]
