Call for Freeview Gaelic channel

Published on Monday 28 December 2009 21:18

THE BBC is today being urged to make a Gaelic channel available on Freeview as a review of the service gets under way.

The BBC Trust is consulting on ways to make BBC Alba, currently available only through satellite and online, more easily accessible. Three Labour MSPs in the Highlands and Islands, Peter Peacock, Rhoda Grant and David Stewart, have written to the trust to make the case for the channel to be put on Freeview.

Mr Peacock said: "BBC Alba provides a valuable service to the Gaelic speaking communities of the Highlands and Islands with its high-quality programming and community emphasis. It is hard to overestimate the importance of this service in ensuring the survival and promotion of Gaelic language and culture."

He warned that many people in the Highlands and Islands do not have access to satellite and cable television for financial and logistical reasons.

One suggestion to allow Alba to move to Freeview involves the loss of English-language radio stations on Freeview television in Scotland.

This would see Radios 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Live, BBC Radio Scotland, and the World Service and several other stations, all drop off Freeview between 5pm and 11pm every night to free up necessary bandwidth to broadcast BBC Alba.

BBC Alba began broadcasting in September 2008 with a budget of 14 million – 4m from the BBC and 10m from MG Alba, a Gaelic media body funded by the Scottish Government.

Viewing figures fell from 610,000 in the four weeks after its launch to 220,000.

Meanwhile, Aberdeen North SNP MSP Brian Adam, has urged the BBC Trust to recognise different regions of Scotland through it's TV news broadcasts. He claimed those in the north saw little local news on TV.