What's ALBA fuss about? Gaelic TV gets digital

The channel promises Gaelic speakers a news programme – An La – every Monday to Friday between 8pm and 8.30pm while the wider audience will be able to watch a full SPL football match every Saturday night, while there will also be Rugby on a Saturday or a Sunday, sometimes live, and occasionally Shinty through out the year. The channel also offers children’s programmes and documentaries, some sourced in Europe with Gaelic voiceover and English subtitles.

“The programmes should be really accessible,” says Campbell. The launch evening also features a one off production starring comedian Gregg Hemphill as Elvis and a programme about killer Peter Manuel which has been produced by STV and has already attracted a lot of interest.

“A lot of the interviews are in English, the voice over is in Gaelic with English subtitles, so it’s a hugely accessible programme,” explains Campbell.

The new channel will begin broadcasting every day from 5pm through broadcasters Sky and FreeSat, although it will not be accessible to Freeview viewers for at least the next two years as there no more available channels on that service.

Campbell goes onto describe how the channel is working in partnership with the BBC, STV and independent production houses.

“What happens is that this is a partnership between us – MG ALBA, and the BBC. So we use the BBC’s broadcasting infrastructure, the BBC has given us license and they are putting together a news programme and some other programmes. We put in the majority of the programmes from our side, we run it jointly with the BBC, and the people who make programmes for us include the BBC, STV and independent production companies which all pitched their ideas on a competitive basis.”

He continues; “For the last commissioning round, we had 214 submissions for 14 programmes which we could commission. To have that many really good quality submissions, which weren’t for one offs but for complete series of programmes. It was really unfortunate that we could only go with 14 due to cost restraints.”

The budget for the station has been set at £15million, a long way short of the Broadcast Commission’s recommended cost of £50-£75million.

“The Scottish Government has been very supportive and has increased our funding to £12 and a half million this year which allows us to run the basics of a channel. The BBC put in about £5million comprised of £2million for news, £2million for programmes and about £1million for core infrastructure costs for broadcasting and getting our signal up.”

The channel is also set to host its first live football match next month when it broadcasts the match between Partick Thistle and Airdrie in the Challenge Cup semi final. It is hoped that the broadcast of live Scottish First Division matches in the future will bring a wider audience to the new channel, no matter what they native tongue.

“One of the things we’ve done with the channel is that we’ve given two companies long term deals and those deals allow them to staff up for the future. Instead of making ends meet. Television companies live in an uncertain world where they are struggling. So we’ve stablised the economy a little by giving longer term deals to both companies. And one of them is a sports company,” says Campbell.

When asked how important this launch will be for the Scottish media industry, Campbell says that he doesn’t view it as anything other than “a small proportion of the media economy in Scotland,” but knows that this will give more people the opportunity to work in media in Scotland, especially Gaelic speakers.

“All of the independent production companies, all of the people who make programmes in Scotland, have pitched to make programmes in Gaelic. They always find people to put in front of the camera, whatever it is that they need to do to make the programme.

"So for the core Gaelic speaking companies which are involved, it allows them to consolidate their skills base and then look forward to taking steps out into the English speaking marketplace, which they do in any case, competing for Channel 4, Channel 5 and BBC commissions. Hopefully this will give them a skills base to complement the service.”

BBC ALBA begins on BBC 2, SKY, and FreeSat at 9pm tonight.