I am sure most Welsh would prefer to receive C4HD on Freeview rather than Clirlun. S4C SD is bad enough but S4C HD is a waste of the BBC's money. Given that they have to save 25% of their budget in the next five years, Clirlun seems a good place to start cutting.
Then there is the S4C transponder which is full of ..... wait a minute there must be some mistake ..... no it's true ....... just S4C in SD. They even put S4C2 on another bird.
Yeah I don't get this. It's even at a reduced resolution of 544*576 when it could surely use a bit more space and go full resolution, seeing as there's nothing else at all on the transponder.
Salfordian, do the Germans get 35 regional radio stations funded by the English, or is that just taxpayers in Wales, N.Ireland and Scotland that fund another countrys radio network? :rolleyes:
Like it or not but there is a need to promote these languages despite them being listened to by a very small % of the UK. It's a waste of money in my opinion and probably the opinion of 95% of the UK but that's just the way it is.
Woah, extremely bigotted views!!!!
Firstly, most of the regional stations are in ENGLAND, and neither of the other 3 nations begrudge that - secondly, only £100M of the £300M of the TVL raised in Scotland is spent on programming for Scottish viewers, which is why Scotland will be gaining a fully Independent Channel next year
So we don't get LIVE games and should be satisfied with that?
No thanks, long live BBC Alba if its bringing Scotland live Scottish ML games in the way that BBC NI brings Ulster games to NI, RTE and TG4 bringing Irish ML games to Ireland and S4C and BBC Wales bringing Welsh ML games to Wales. Fair, no?
If you want to watch live ML games, you could alway head along to Murrayfield or Firhill to watch the games. Reasonably priced tickets, good games (certainly better than a lot of football) and, most importantly, they sell you beer (at least at Murrayfield) before, during and after the games.
Firstly, most of the regional stations are in ENGLAND, and neither of the other 3 nations begrudge that - secondly, only £100M of the £300M of the TVL raised in Scotland is spent on programming for Scottish viewers, which is why Scotland will be gaining a fully Independent Channel next year
Its around £335 and you forget the Scots are supposed to contribute for national programming too but it looks like they have a good number going,
Scotland will be gaining a fully Independent Channel next year
:
I hope they get full Independence tbh.......if that's what they wish
Salfordian, do the Germans get 35 regional radio stations funded by the English, or is that just taxpayers in Wales, N.Ireland and Scotland that fund another countrys radio network? :rolleyes:
Do the Welsh get programming on BBC1 & 2 plus another channel for a very very small minority worth £100 million alone, yes, Do the Welsh fund their own S4C channel, no the English taxpayer funds it.
Like it or not but there is a need to promote these languages despite them being listened to by a very small % of the UK. It's a waste of money in my opinion and probably the opinion of 95% of the UK but that's just the way it is.
I've got no issue with the languages however if the Welsh and Scottish want them don't you think they should be paying for them instead of the English
Now you have a live brodcaster (BBC Alba) and a highlights programme (STV) which is better than NI/ROI (no highlights programme). Fair for Scottish viewers - yes!
Its a shame they don't have both, but I hope no-one will begrudge us having both!
If you want to watch live ML games, you could alway head along to Murrayfield or Firhill to watch the games. Reasonably priced tickets, good games (certainly better than a lot of football) and, most importantly, they sell you beer (at least at Murrayfield) before, during and after the games.
Thanks for that, I have actually done that in the past, though obviously not every week, and it has been most enjoyable. But thats like cutting BBC Wales/S4C coverage and saying, "hey, why not head on down to the Liberty Stadium instead". Not really a viable alternative week-in week-out!
And Lundavra, why do you begrudge BBC Alba so?
If people in Caithness don't want to speak Gaelic thats fine, I'm not going to make them or anyone else try and speak it. Heck, I don't myself! But I fail to see why that is a reason to preclude BBC Alba reaching the same status as S4C has in Wales or TG4 has in Ireland given that the latter two are also minority languages that many don't want forced upon them. And arguably BBC Alba is managing it on a much smaller budget.
Also, Die Kaiser is right, the name 'BBC Alba' is almost something of a misnomer. If you look at the logo, rather than the name, you can see it is an amalgam of MG Alba and the BBC's logos.
The BBC have yet to set a start date for BBC Alba on Freeview. It could be June 2011 when the last Scottish transmitter group, Black Hill, switches off its analogue signals.
Completely incorrect. BBC Alba is ran by MG Alba, in partnership with the BBC, where the BBC are the Junior Partner.
OK its a partnership,and needs to be even, you may well find certain Politicians will get elected by default, and force programmes they want you to watch, thus as in Wales zero audience.
In Wrexham, with an extreme low amount of Welsh speakers we have gone through the exercise of having every road sign bilingual, then every footpath sign bilingual,if I attend any Council meeting, a translator at £100 an hour is present, in case anyone wishes to speak in Welsh,this service is used perhaps once in 20 meetings, we had adverts in yesterdays papers, almost raciest by the Welsh Language Board,advising employers to employ Welsh speakers, it goes on and on.
We have Welsh Politicians spouses running Companies to provide translation, with cronies planted to ensure they must be present at every function, nice earner.
Back to S4C model, if Alba takes the S4C model, it will be the start to everything bilingual,like it or not, it will happen, it did in Wales, I am a Welsh speaker and am alarmed at the the waste of money spent, remember S4C is a trough for the few elete who have made a fortune,and gained zero audiences.
The sacking of the S4C CEO,will end in an out of court settlement, and who pays for that, The entire S4C board & senior staff are just one big incestuousness family in my opinion ,adopt this model, and pay for it.
I don't "begrudge" BBC Alba. I just object to the way that there is an open cheque book for any spending on Gaelic often against local people's wishes. We have one area that was built with Gaelic street names in the 1950s(?) then the street names were changed to English because locals wanted it but now they have been changed back to Gaelic without any consideration of whether of not the people living there want it. It is reported this week that £100,000 is being spent a year on taking 27 children to a new £4 million Gaelic primary school by taxi at the same time as the same council is having make serious economies.
Back to S4C model, if Alba takes the S4C model, it will be the start to everything bilingual,like it or not, it will happen, it did in Wales, I am a Welsh speaker and am alarmed at the the waste of money spent, remember S4C is a trough for the few elete who have made a fortune,and gained zero audiences.
You also end up in Wales with people going through the whole education system in Welsh and coming out at the end barely able to speak English so unemployable outside Wales. Some friends' son at university in Wales lived in a shared house and they had a Welsh student with them who had chosen not to live in an all Welsh hall because he realised that his English was so bad that he needed to mix with some non-Welsh speakers so he could improve it.
You also end up in Wales with people going through the whole education system in Welsh and coming out at the end barely able to speak English so unemployable outside Wales. Some friends' son at university in Wales lived in a shared house and they had a Welsh student with them who had chosen not to live in an all Welsh hall because he realised that his English was so bad that he needed to mix with some non-Welsh speakers so he could improve it.
what sane education system or more imporantly partent would let that happen however, are there really people in Wales, who would not educated the kids in english?
I don't "begrudge" BBC Alba. I just object to the way that there is an open cheque book for any spending on Gaelic often against local people's wishes. We have one area that was built with Gaelic street names in the 1950s(?) then the street names were changed to English because locals wanted it but now they have been changed back to Gaelic without any consideration of whether of not the people living there want it. It is reported this week that £100,000 is being spent a year on taking 27 children to a new £4 million Gaelic primary school by taxi at the same time as the same council is having make serious economies.
Thing is, when it is a council policy that they agreed to uphold, the public don't have much say in it. Maybe this will change when the Highland Council's Gaelic Plan runs out in 2012 [I think].
So far, they haven't met all their targets and are going to have a major rethink about it.
As for Gaelic Signs, it was discussed a while back by Bòrd na Gàidhlig and Comunn na Gàidhlig that they get the Gaelic versions put on the sign free of charge in some areas and for a very minimal price in others. They also only make old, redundant signs into Bilingual ones - they don't just pull down new English ones.
As for Gaelic Signs, it was discussed a while back by Bòrd na Gàidhlig and Comunn na Gàidhlig that they get the Gaelic versions put on the sign free of charge in some areas and for a very minimal price in others. They also only make old, redundant signs into Bilingual ones - they don't just pull down new English ones.
Nothing is "free of charge", someone must be paying. They usually claim that they are only replacing signs that are due for replacement but it is a con. They changed most of the ones around here and in the paper claimed that it was only going to be ones due for replacement but they were all changed. I hate to think how much it all cost because there seemed to be at least six vehicles full of people working on each sign change.
Because of the duplication and tendency for Gaelic names to be longer, the signs are much bigger so must cost more - one was even mounted projecting into a car park so one car parking bay had to be coned off after someone reversed into the projecting sign and broke their rear window
Nothing is "free of charge", someone must be paying. They usually claim that they are only replacing signs that are due for replacement but it is a con. They changed most of the ones around here and in the paper claimed that it was only going to be ones due for replacement but they were all changed. I hate to think how much it all cost because there seemed to be at least six vehicles full of people working on each sign change.
Because of the duplication and tendency for Gaelic names to be longer, the signs are much bigger so must cost more - one was even mounted projecting into a car park so one car parking bay had to be coned off after someone reversed into the projecting sign and broke their rear window.
"Free of charge" meaning that they don't pay extra to have the Gaelic added. It is just put on.
Also, if you look closely at the signs you will see that the Gaelic name is literally just stuck on with strong tape [unlike the English which is printed on the sign]. Can't cost very much [if they do pay extra for it].
I don't "begrudge" BBC Alba. I just object to the way that there is an open cheque book for any spending on Gaelic often against local people's wishes. We have one area that was built with Gaelic street names in the 1950s(?) then the street names were changed to English because locals wanted it but now they have been changed back to Gaelic without any consideration of whether of not the people living there want it. It is reported this week that £100,000 is being spent a year on taking 27 children to a new £4 million Gaelic primary school by taxi at the same time as the same council is having make serious economies.
But what has any of that got to do with BBC Alba?
As far as I am aware the BBC are doing a straight swap, replacing 13 radio stations with 1 television channel during its broadcast hours. On their own mux. Where is the extra cost in that? And if its the channel in general that you are against, unlike S4C there is not quite the same money lavished on it. However, money that is spent is spent on producing programmes made here in Scotland by Scottish production companies, where obviously not everyone speaks Gaelic, so there are plenty who benefit from BBC Alba. Its not really in the same category as wasting money re-doing street signs.
ML is already on Freeview (301) on most ML Friday nights although this is a BBC2W programme. Also for STV viewers (but not Border) there is a weekly highlights programme on a Sunday night. With BBC Alba you will definitely get a Scottish team and a Scottish slant.
I Know about BBC Wales and BBC NI which is good, as is red button english Commentary, just would be good to have same facility on Alba. I do have Access to STV through Sky extra channels (as I am in Border area)
Firstly, most of the regional stations are in ENGLAND, and neither of the other 3 nations begrudge that - secondly, only £100M of the £300M of the TVL raised in Scotland is spent on programming for Scottish viewers, which is why Scotland will be gaining a fully Independent Channel next year
I think we're actually agreeing. Salfordian was claiming the English taxpayer was paying for the channels (they aren't) and that it would be like the Germans (???) paying for English channels.
My point is that Scottish/Welsh taxpayer is paying for 35 regional radio stations in England whilst they have 1 each.
The 300m thing isn't quite accurate though. In Scotland you still get English made programming. It shouldn't be that you get English made programmes for nowt and 300m of your own. It should be calculated what % of cost for this programming should come from Scottish viewers (8-10%) and the rest spent on Scottish broadcasting.
However, it's widely acknowledged that the BBC is spending less than it should on Scottish broadcasting going by head of population. This is accepted and being acted on. Unfortunately all they do is stick crap like Weakest Link to Glasgow rather than doing a decent drama in a Scottish town/city.
I think we're actually agreeing. Salfordian was claiming the English taxpayer was paying for the channels (they aren't) and that it would be like the Germans (???) paying for English channels.
My point is that Scottish/Welsh taxpayer is paying for 35 regional radio stations in England whilst they have 1 each.
The 300m thing isn't quite accurate though. In Scotland you still get English made programming. It shouldn't be that you get English made programmes for nowt and 300m of your own. It should be calculated what % of cost for this programming should come from Scottish viewers (8-10%) and the rest spent on Scottish broadcasting.
However, it's widely acknowledged that the BBC is spending less than it should on Scottish broadcasting going by head of population. This is accepted and being acted on. Unfortunately all they do is stick crap like Weakest Link to Glasgow rather than doing a decent drama in a Scottish town/city.
I would think that all the local radio stations in England are much smaller operations that Radio Scotland.
The majority of people in England will only have one of the 35 stations serving them, some will have none so the fact there are 35 is irrelevant. Just about everyone in Scotland is served by two radio stations that operate 24 all day, both far more expensive operations that an English local radio station with studios in a number of parts of Scotland.
People in England will have a regional TV station which usually does not do much more than put out local news, BBC Scotland produces many more hours programming than any of these.
As has been said the cost of all the national programming watched in Scotland is always conveniently overlooked. Also the transmission costs in Scotland are almost certainly higher because of the size and nature of the terrain. And the BBC "back office" functions serve the whole country.
OK its a partnership,and needs to be even, you may well find certain Politicians will get elected by default, and force programmes they want you to watch, thus as in Wales zero audience.
As has been said many times, the RAJAR survey specifically excludes preschoolers.
The zero audience programs on S4C are preschool programs.
Stop trying to beat the channel with a non-existent stick.
Back to S4C model, if Alba takes the S4C model, it will be the start to everything bilingual,like it or not, it will happen, it did in Wales, I am a Welsh speaker and am alarmed at the the waste of money spent, remember S4C is a trough for the few elete who have made a fortune,and gained zero audiences.
That won't happen. The Welsh lobby is a much bigger part of Welsh society than the Gaelic lobby is in Scotland.
Scotland also has checks and balances in the form of the Scots language. As Gaelic becomes more visible, so Scots speakers become more concerned about the relative visibility of their language.
I don't "begrudge" BBC Alba. I just object to the way that there is an open cheque book for any spending on Gaelic often against local people's wishes.
If there's an open chequebook, it's crossed cheques with a very low value.
It's amazing how the press take a pittance and blow it out of proportion as "profligate spending" and all that. Take this rant from the Taxpayer's Alliance for spending 5,840 quid on DVDs. That's DVDs for 2000 children. That's less than three quid per kid. Notice how they talk about a rally of 8000 teachers against cuts. Which has nothing to do with this, because that's less than a quid per head on the march.
Most of the figures bandied about as being "disgraceful" and "outrageous" are just as flimsy.
You only have to look in the BBC Trust review of BBC Alba to see how expensive S4C programming is.
The cost of BBC-funded programming for BBC ALBA, at £19,000 per hour, is less than both S4C (£53,000 per hour) and TG4 (€29,000 per hour, which is around £25,000).
Makes one wonder how the S4C costs can be so out of kilter?
It's not S4C that's out of kilter.
BBC Alba is a critically underfunded channel, incapable of producing any original drama through lack of funds. There is no scope for introducing a Gaelic soap comparable to Pobol y Cwm, for example.
Comparing TG4 is a bit difficult. TG4 does broadcast "reversioned" (ie dubbed) material, and neither S4C nor BBC Alba have been keen to do that in the past. This is understandable -- the dubbed material on TG4 is generally from English and already likely to have been seen by much of the audience, as well as slightly dated, therefore cheap. The only source of "unseen" dubbed material would be foreign-language TV and the set of potential translators suddenly gets very small indeed.
TG4 is also a foreign channel, and if you really want to do the comparison, you need to normalise the cost of TG4 against the norm for Irish channels.
Comments
Completely incorrect. BBC Alba is ran by MG Alba, in partnership with the BBC, where the BBC are the Junior Partner.
Yeah I don't get this. It's even at a reduced resolution of 544*576 when it could surely use a bit more space and go full resolution, seeing as there's nothing else at all on the transponder.
Woah, extremely bigotted views!!!!
Firstly, most of the regional stations are in ENGLAND, and neither of the other 3 nations begrudge that - secondly, only £100M of the £300M of the TVL raised in Scotland is spent on programming for Scottish viewers, which is why Scotland will be gaining a fully Independent Channel next year
If you want to watch live ML games, you could alway head along to Murrayfield or Firhill to watch the games. Reasonably priced tickets, good games (certainly better than a lot of football) and, most importantly, they sell you beer (at least at Murrayfield) before, during and after the games.
Its around £335 and you forget the Scots are supposed to contribute for national programming too but it looks like they have a good number going,
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I hope they get full Independence tbh.......if that's what they wish
Do the Welsh get programming on BBC1 & 2 plus another channel for a very very small minority worth £100 million alone, yes, Do the Welsh fund their own S4C channel, no the English taxpayer funds it.
I've got no issue with the languages however if the Welsh and Scottish want them don't you think they should be paying for them instead of the English
Its a shame they don't have both, but I hope no-one will begrudge us having both!
Thanks for that, I have actually done that in the past, though obviously not every week, and it has been most enjoyable. But thats like cutting BBC Wales/S4C coverage and saying, "hey, why not head on down to the Liberty Stadium instead". Not really a viable alternative week-in week-out!
And Lundavra, why do you begrudge BBC Alba so?
If people in Caithness don't want to speak Gaelic thats fine, I'm not going to make them or anyone else try and speak it. Heck, I don't myself! But I fail to see why that is a reason to preclude BBC Alba reaching the same status as S4C has in Wales or TG4 has in Ireland given that the latter two are also minority languages that many don't want forced upon them. And arguably BBC Alba is managing it on a much smaller budget.
Also, Die Kaiser is right, the name 'BBC Alba' is almost something of a misnomer. If you look at the logo, rather than the name, you can see it is an amalgam of MG Alba and the BBC's logos.
Alba Gu Brath!
OK its a partnership,and needs to be even, you may well find certain Politicians will get elected by default, and force programmes they want you to watch, thus as in Wales zero audience.
In Wrexham, with an extreme low amount of Welsh speakers we have gone through the exercise of having every road sign bilingual, then every footpath sign bilingual,if I attend any Council meeting, a translator at £100 an hour is present, in case anyone wishes to speak in Welsh,this service is used perhaps once in 20 meetings, we had adverts in yesterdays papers, almost raciest by the Welsh Language Board,advising employers to employ Welsh speakers, it goes on and on.
We have Welsh Politicians spouses running Companies to provide translation, with cronies planted to ensure they must be present at every function, nice earner.
Back to S4C model, if Alba takes the S4C model, it will be the start to everything bilingual,like it or not, it will happen, it did in Wales, I am a Welsh speaker and am alarmed at the the waste of money spent, remember S4C is a trough for the few elete who have made a fortune,and gained zero audiences.
The sacking of the S4C CEO,will end in an out of court settlement, and who pays for that, The entire S4C board & senior staff are just one big incestuousness family in my opinion ,adopt this model, and pay for it.
end of rant
I don't "begrudge" BBC Alba. I just object to the way that there is an open cheque book for any spending on Gaelic often against local people's wishes. We have one area that was built with Gaelic street names in the 1950s(?) then the street names were changed to English because locals wanted it but now they have been changed back to Gaelic without any consideration of whether of not the people living there want it. It is reported this week that £100,000 is being spent a year on taking 27 children to a new £4 million Gaelic primary school by taxi at the same time as the same council is having make serious economies.
You also end up in Wales with people going through the whole education system in Welsh and coming out at the end barely able to speak English so unemployable outside Wales. Some friends' son at university in Wales lived in a shared house and they had a Welsh student with them who had chosen not to live in an all Welsh hall because he realised that his English was so bad that he needed to mix with some non-Welsh speakers so he could improve it.
So far, they haven't met all their targets and are going to have a major rethink about it.
As for Gaelic Signs, it was discussed a while back by Bòrd na Gàidhlig and Comunn na Gàidhlig that they get the Gaelic versions put on the sign free of charge in some areas and for a very minimal price in others. They also only make old, redundant signs into Bilingual ones - they don't just pull down new English ones.
Nothing is "free of charge", someone must be paying. They usually claim that they are only replacing signs that are due for replacement but it is a con. They changed most of the ones around here and in the paper claimed that it was only going to be ones due for replacement but they were all changed. I hate to think how much it all cost because there seemed to be at least six vehicles full of people working on each sign change.
Because of the duplication and tendency for Gaelic names to be longer, the signs are much bigger so must cost more - one was even mounted projecting into a car park so one car parking bay had to be coned off after someone reversed into the projecting sign and broke their rear window
.
"Free of charge" meaning that they don't pay extra to have the Gaelic added. It is just put on.
Also, if you look closely at the signs you will see that the Gaelic name is literally just stuck on with strong tape [unlike the English which is printed on the sign]. Can't cost very much [if they do pay extra for it].
But what has any of that got to do with BBC Alba?
As far as I am aware the BBC are doing a straight swap, replacing 13 radio stations with 1 television channel during its broadcast hours. On their own mux. Where is the extra cost in that? And if its the channel in general that you are against, unlike S4C there is not quite the same money lavished on it. However, money that is spent is spent on producing programmes made here in Scotland by Scottish production companies, where obviously not everyone speaks Gaelic, so there are plenty who benefit from BBC Alba. Its not really in the same category as wasting money re-doing street signs.
I Know about BBC Wales and BBC NI which is good, as is red button english Commentary, just would be good to have same facility on Alba. I do have Access to STV through Sky extra channels (as I am in Border area)
I think we're actually agreeing. Salfordian was claiming the English taxpayer was paying for the channels (they aren't) and that it would be like the Germans (???) paying for English channels.
My point is that Scottish/Welsh taxpayer is paying for 35 regional radio stations in England whilst they have 1 each.
The 300m thing isn't quite accurate though. In Scotland you still get English made programming. It shouldn't be that you get English made programmes for nowt and 300m of your own. It should be calculated what % of cost for this programming should come from Scottish viewers (8-10%) and the rest spent on Scottish broadcasting.
However, it's widely acknowledged that the BBC is spending less than it should on Scottish broadcasting going by head of population. This is accepted and being acted on. Unfortunately all they do is stick crap like Weakest Link to Glasgow rather than doing a decent drama in a Scottish town/city.
For once Mark, I completely agree.
I would think that all the local radio stations in England are much smaller operations that Radio Scotland.
The majority of people in England will only have one of the 35 stations serving them, some will have none so the fact there are 35 is irrelevant. Just about everyone in Scotland is served by two radio stations that operate 24 all day, both far more expensive operations that an English local radio station with studios in a number of parts of Scotland.
People in England will have a regional TV station which usually does not do much more than put out local news, BBC Scotland produces many more hours programming than any of these.
As has been said the cost of all the national programming watched in Scotland is always conveniently overlooked. Also the transmission costs in Scotland are almost certainly higher because of the size and nature of the terrain. And the BBC "back office" functions serve the whole country.
The zero audience programs on S4C are preschool programs.
Stop trying to beat the channel with a non-existent stick. That won't happen. The Welsh lobby is a much bigger part of Welsh society than the Gaelic lobby is in Scotland.
Scotland also has checks and balances in the form of the Scots language. As Gaelic becomes more visible, so Scots speakers become more concerned about the relative visibility of their language. If there's an open chequebook, it's crossed cheques with a very low value.
It's amazing how the press take a pittance and blow it out of proportion as "profligate spending" and all that. Take this rant from the Taxpayer's Alliance for spending 5,840 quid on DVDs. That's DVDs for 2000 children. That's less than three quid per kid. Notice how they talk about a rally of 8000 teachers against cuts. Which has nothing to do with this, because that's less than a quid per head on the march.
Most of the figures bandied about as being "disgraceful" and "outrageous" are just as flimsy.
Makes one wonder how the S4C costs can be so out of kilter?
BBC Alba is a critically underfunded channel, incapable of producing any original drama through lack of funds. There is no scope for introducing a Gaelic soap comparable to Pobol y Cwm, for example.
Comparing TG4 is a bit difficult. TG4 does broadcast "reversioned" (ie dubbed) material, and neither S4C nor BBC Alba have been keen to do that in the past. This is understandable -- the dubbed material on TG4 is generally from English and already likely to have been seen by much of the audience, as well as slightly dated, therefore cheap. The only source of "unseen" dubbed material would be foreign-language TV and the set of potential translators suddenly gets very small indeed.
TG4 is also a foreign channel, and if you really want to do the comparison, you need to normalise the cost of TG4 against the norm for Irish channels.