Alba uses SPL as gateway to wider audience

Published on Friday 26 September 2008 22:22

THERE may not have been too many spectators at last week's Hearts-Inverness match who were so enthralled that they wanted to rush home and watch it again. But anyone who had been so inclined would have been able to do so.

The same goes for today's game between Falkirk and Hamilton Accies. And for next week's Aberdeen-Hibs encounter, and, eight days further on from that, the Alba Challenge Cup semi-final between Partick Thistle and Airdrie United. And on 18 October, when Hamilton are at home to St Mirren.

The key word in the preceding paragraph is Alba. BBC Alba, the Gaelic-langage channel launched last week, has acquired the rights to show delayed transmissions of SPL games and of the knockout competition which bears its name. The reruns are broadcast on Saturday evening then again on Sunday afternoon, and are available on Sky or Freesat.

Yes, the match commentary and analysis are in Gaelic, but that should not be a discouragement to those of us who do not speak the language. We can turn the sound down if we prefer, or simply accept that what Derek Mackay and Alex O'Henley are saying is at least as comprehensible as the utterances of some of the manglers of English wheeled out by certain other channels.

The launch of BBC Alba just eight days ago was a relatively low-key affair, but, judging by the marketing methods they are using, station bosses appear more intent on building up a grassroots audience rather than aiming for spectacular one-offs to pull in the millions. At Tynecastle last week, for instance, spectators were given leaflets on their way into the ground telling them how they could watch the match again.

Of course, it would be a lot easier for many more of us to do so if BBC Alba were on Freeview, but apparently that is not going to happen until 2010, when the analogue signal is due to be switched off and we all turn to digital. So we'll just have to be patient for the time being, or keep calling in on friends who have Sky.

Anyway, Alba plans to show a decent range of SPL matches. Having Caley Thistle in the first game was predictable enough, and there is also a link between Falkirk, scene of today's game, and Gaeldom – the National Mod is to take place in the town shortly.

Needless to say, much of Alba's core audience will be most interested in the fortunes of Rangers and Celtic, and those two clubs are the only ones to whose games restrictions apply. Matches involving the Old Firm cannot be shown in their entirety, but may only be presented in highlights.

The sporting output of the station goes well beyond Scottish football. The most enjoyable programme in this week's output, for example, was a documentary on Zinedine Zidane, which focused in particular on the great Frenchman's final match for Real Madrid.

Apart from a contribution in English by Zidane's erstwhile team-mate David Beckham, the programme's original dialogue and commentary was in French. There were English subtitles for those French bits, and some Gaelic commentary had then been put on top.

So the hour-long show might not have satisfied linguistic purists who want Gaelic and nothing else on the station, but nonetheless it was a useful statement of the anti-parochial reality. To wit, that Gaelic speakers have as much interest in the wider world as do the rest of us.

Nor is Alba planning to confine its sporting output to football. Shinty is an obvious interest, and there are also plans to show some rugby. Negotiations with the relevant authorities are still going on, but at present it is a fair bet that both sports will have been added to the roster by the turn of the year.