Alex Salmond RT show attracts just 16,000 viewers

The first edition of Alex Salmond's controversial new political chat show was watched by just 16,000 viewers in the UK, broadcast figures have revealed.

Alex Salmond's RT chat show launched last month

The former first minister was revealed last month as the latest star of RT, a Kremlin-backed broadcaster which critics claim is little more than a mouthpiece for the Putin regime.

Figures from the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB), it attracted an audience of just 16,000 when it was first broadcast on the morning of November 16. The audience was 15,000 before the break and 16,000 after.

But that was still enough to make the programme the most-watched RT programme across the UK.

In the same week, Whale Adventure With Nigel Marvin on the channel Eden attracted 24,000 viewers.

A repeat of Taggart on STV2 was seen by the same number of people who watched Salmond’s show.

“There must be more people who have watched the Teletubbies in Auchtermuchty than have watched Alex Salmond’s chat show in the whole world,” Scots Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie told the Daily Record.

“This compounds the shame Alex should feel for being a stooge for Vladimir Putin on his propaganda channel.”

Guests on the first broadcast of The Alex Salmond Show last month included deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, Tory MP Crispin Blunt and Labour peer Baroness Helena Kennedy.

The Madrid government – which opposed the referendum taking place – dissolved the regional Catalan parliament after it voted in favour of a unilateral declaration of independence, and called snap elections for December.

During the interview, Mr Puidgemont said there was an “an intellectual incapacity” on the part of the Spanish government “to admit the possibility, the real possibility, that Spain could be different in future”.