BBC Alba is a Scottish Gaelic-language free-to-air public broadcast television channel jointly owned by the BBC and MG Alba. The channel was launched on 19 September 2008 and is on-air for up to seven hours a day. The name is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. 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.
BBC Alba had an average viewership of 637,000 adults over the age of 16 in Scotland each week.
History
In 2007, the BBC Trust opened a consultation for a Gaelic digital service in partnership with the Gaelic Media Service. Following the BBC Trust consultation in November 2007, the Audience 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 on BBC Scotland should remain after the launch. On 28 January 2008, the BBC Trust gave the go-ahead for a Gaelic channel.
The channel began broadcasting on satellite at 9:00 pm on 19 September 2008 with a launch video featuring a new rendition of the Runrig song, . The first part of a live cèilidh from Skye, presented by Mary Ann Kennedy, was followed by a specially produced comedy-drama entitled (Elvis), starring Greg Hemphill as Elvis Presley, at 9:30 pm. The channel's first independent commission, (Peter Manuel - The End of Evil?), a drama-documentary produced by STV Productions, was shown at 10:30 pm before the opening night closed with the second half of the live cèilidh from Skye. The launch night was simulcast on BBC Two Scotland between 9:00 pm and 10:30 pm and a launch event was held at the National Museum of Scotland, which was recorded by the channel's news service .
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. After being subject to a review by the BBC Trust and a recommendation from the Audience Council Scotland in 2009, a plan was announced to broadcast the channel on Freeview, 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 and the service launched on Freeview on 8 June 2011. The channel also launched on Virgin Media (Scotland only) on 18 May 2011, and was made available nationwide on the Virgin Media and Sky platforms, the former on 6 November 2012.
Operation
BBC Alba is broadcast for up to seven hours a day in the United Kingdom on satellite platforms Sky and Freesat, cable provider Virgin Media and on digital terrestrial provider Freeview in Scotland only. BBC Alba simulcasts the BBC's Gaelic-language radio service BBC Radio nan Gàidheal as well during the day after midnight (1am on Saturday night), which in turn simulcasts BBC Radio Scotland overnight. Programmes are also available to watch on the Internet live through services including the BBC 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. Unlike BBC Three and BBC Four, BBC Alba is an evenings-only channel that doesn't start broadcasting until 7pm and doesn't timeshare with other channels. On 8 September 2022, BBC Alba had to pause programming at around 6:30pm due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Normal programming resumed the following day at 7pm.
The channel is financed from the BBC Scotland budget and by MG Alba, which itself is financed by the Scottish government and the UK government. In 2011/12 the BBC spent £8 million on the channel, of which £5 million was used for programming. MG Alba spends the majority of its budget (£12.4 million in 2008/09) on the Gaelic Digital Service.
BBC Alba continuity presentation and channel management is based in Stornoway, while the news services are based in Inverness. BBC Scotland's headquarters at Pacific Quay in Glasgow is used to transmit the programmes.
The BBC have confirmed that BBC Alba HD will launch online and on various platforms between October 2021 and the end of 2022.
Content
BBC Alba combines television, radio and on-line programme content. BBC Alba broadcasts more Scottish sport than any other channel, with over three hours a week of football, rugby and shinty. In addition, the station also broadcasts a live news programme every day, with the weekend news provision beginning in 2018.