Catching up

With all that DG excitement, I missed the annual report of MG Alba, in the first year of BBC Alba's transmission on Freeview in the evenings across Scotland (at the expense of BBC network radio). It offers these viewing figures.

• The average 15+ minute weekly reach for BBC ALBA for the year was 436,000, compared with 180,000 the previous year
• The anytime average weekly reach was 515,000, compared with 220,000 the previous year 

This apparently allows the report to assert the channel has "half a million viewers a week".  And it claims to reach 4 out of 5 Gaelic speakers every week - I can find no reference to how many that represents. At the back, the financial statements note Alba's principal income - an £11.8m grant from the Treasury.

On its launch in September 2008, Alba claimed 610,000 viewers. By November and December, that had fallen back to 400,000. A weekly average of 220,000 was reported to the BBC Trust in 2009, and figures of 200,000 early in 2010. In October 2011, the BBC said Alba was reaching 530,000 adults a week.  In the 2001 census, there were 58,650 Gaelic speakers in Scotland.