Good to see that the success of the Scottish language television channel, BBC Alba, is being recognised with an increase in support from the London authorities. In this opinion piece from For Argyll:
“MG ALBA has welcomed confirmation of an extra £1 million to be made available for BBC ALBA’s budget from 2015-16.
The funding increase, announced as part of the UK Government’s Spending Round this week, will be provided to MG ALBA to spend on the channel which it operates in a unique partnership with the BBC.
This additional expenditure will take the channel’s budget to approximately £15 million per annum, an uplift of around 7%.
BBC ALBA is a delight – non-parochial, non-ghettoised, full of surprises with wonderful quirky programme that understands curiosity. It’s rare to see a forthcoming schedule for the channel without spotting several ‘must sees’, all of them on subjects you’d never have thought of but which immediately appeal to the imagination.
And BBC ALBA’s omnipresent reporter/cameraman, Andreas Wolf, is a superb ambassador for the channel, open, engaged, interested.
The channel fully deserved to be on Freeview and leads most of its broadcasting peers in understanding that today’s audience is a well informed and questing one.”
“Danish dramas could inspire potential makers of Gaelic-language dramas, a BBC Alba boss has said.
The latest annual report for the Gaelic channel run by MG Alba in partnership with the BBC said a lack of original drama will be tackled.
MG Alba’s chairwoman Maggie Cunningham said the global success of The Killing and Borgen was an inspiration.
Ms Cunningham said: “We are committed to developing children’s programming and multi-media resources and these areas stand side by side with drama as priorities for the channel.
“We have been inspired by and admire the global success achieved by Danish dramas Borgen and The Killing, and, looking ahead, we will continue to share experiences with our fellow minority language broadcasters such as S4C and TG4 to inspire our commissioning and funding strategies.
“While indigenous language crime programmes have been a success we will be looking at all options for developing drama for the channel.”
According to the newly-published report, BBC Alba’s audience figures have increased.
During 2012-13 its weekly reach Scotland-wide grew from 10.6% – 436,000 viewers – to 15.6% or 637,000-a-week.
Interest from Gaelic-speaking communities also rose and an average reach of 79% in the fourth quarter of the year was the highest since 2008.
The report said it had been a record year for iPlayer viewing of BBC Alba content with 4.1 million views of programmes. This was almost double the amount of viewing received in 2011-12.”
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
Good to see that the success of the Scottish language television channel, BBC Alba, is being recognised with an increase in support from the London authorities. In this opinion piece from For Argyll:
And now this from the BBC:
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