Radio Or Alba On Freeview?
I'm a big fan of BBC Alba and not just because it allows me to watch free football on a Saturday night. There have been some great documentaries and music programmes and the nightly news programme from Inverness has the kind of freshness and originality that appeals to my old journalistic instincts.
Great presenters too.
Having said all that, when I first heard about the plans to remove every BBC radio station from Freeview so that BBC Alba could find a home there I was, shall we say, a bit put out.
I'm afraid to say I was responding with the kind of gut instinct that leads some of us in radio to think of ourselves as Cinderella. I'm not going to name the ugly sisters.
But when I started to look at the facts and figures, the idea began to make more sense.
For starters, only about one percent of all radio listening happens through Freeview. And of that one percent very few people have no other alernative, be it FM, DAB, Online or Satellite TV.
At the same time, attempts to promote digital radio listening have been a bit messy because there are so many platforms available. Most of the marketing spend has centred on DAB while internet listening (my own favourite) rarely gets mentioned - except on the radio stations' own idents.
But there's a plan -outlined in the U.K. Government's Digital Britain report - to switch off most FM radio as early as 2015. Most people in the industry regard that target as "ambitious".
For BBC Radio Scotland there are a number of complicating factors around that. We currently offer a split service of FM/MW programmes most weekday evenings. We also split FM transmission geographically to offer localised news and sport in areas such as the Highlands and the Borders.
Currently we cant do either of those things on DAB - which is something many DAB listeners complain about. It needs a technical solution. There is one, but it comes at a cost.
Add to that the long-standing transmission blackspots around Scotland, such as the A9 corridor, and you can see that our issues go way beyond the decision to keep radio on Freeview or not.
But you can have your say on that. The BBC Trust has just launched a consultation exercise and there's a online survey you can complete by clicking here.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~48~RS~)
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None of the discussion has mentioned Alba on cable? I know my father, a natural Gaelic speaker, would certainly want Alba on his Freeview set.
I can get Radio through the cable TV but must say I virtually never listen to the radio in that way. I do listen to the radio a lot via the internet but mainly FM/DAB.
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This is a really interesting blog Jeff. Too bad that there is not more traffic. Also liked your piece below. By the way I saw Janice present the New Music In Scotland gig at the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh on Monday and it was fantastic. Wonderful talent and the trio doing George Crumb's seminal work one of the highlights of any gig I can remember for a long time.
By the way, remember I mentioned that you should go to the Lincoln City gig at The Lot . Well sorry you didn't make it but you can catch up on line by going to the band's myspace at /lincolncityband. These guys are the real deal. Just wait til you get the iconic front man Ali Campbell singing An Independent Nation Once Again.On line from to-morrow you'll see him doing an unplugged Don't Turn Your Back On Me This Way. We are not worthy.
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O H B C & Tennent's Lager lovelies on any medium
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3g57YAUSM8
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Of course I am personally happy to see Alba do very well. However, I am somewhat at odds with it's defining premise: why do we collectively put all this effort into promoting and sustaining the Gaelic language whilst doing almost nothing about the Scots language? The odd skit programme on BBC Radio Scotland and the odd BBC Radio Ulster documentary really only pays lip service (if you'll pardon the pun!)
1.6 million Scots speakers deserve better, or do we all just want to let the language slowly get sucked into English?
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