Will viewing figures for new BBC Scotland prove it is something people want?

I don’t know quite what to make of the £20 million new TV service for Scotland.

My usual thought is that the excellent BBC Scotland programmes I watch, Landward and the Paul Murton outdoors series, are not perhaps seen on the whole UK network, and a chance is missed to promote Scotland. I’d rather Scotland talked to the whole UK rather than talk to itself. At present the BBC pays £8m of its budget for the Gaelic station BBC Alba, and there are only 58,000 Gaelic speakers, most of whom probably don’t watch Gaelic programmes. The Scottish Government pays £13m to top up Alba’s budget, and that’s £13m it could be spending on more sensible things. I watch Scottish rugby and first division football on Alba, so they are counting me as part of their “huge success”. These should be on normal channels, of course, as should the trad music programmes, which do not appear on BBC TV Scotland.

The BBC does not count Alba viewers in the normal industry manner, since they’d prefer you didn’t know how few watch the Gaelic output. Some of these programmes might well have zero viewers. CRAWFORD MACKIE

Keith Row, Edinburgh So Nicola Sturgeon is “disappointed” that there is to be no Scottish Six. Is there no pleasing this woman? (I think we know the answer to that one.)

Scotland will now have two BBC channels that few people really want, as well as STV, which is going ahead with its Scottish News programme. It will be interesting to see the viewing figures for this new channel, which presumably will be released, unlike those for Alba. It will also be interesting to see the programme schedules. I wonder if it will be padded out with Englishmade programmes, or perhaps back-to-back screenings of Braveheart?

Surely this £30m could have been better spent? I wonder if Sky see a market?

KEN CURRIE Liberton Drive, Edinburgh It’s hard to see the point of the new BBC Scotland channel from a “news” point of view in these enlightened times of internet and social networking. I can’t help thinking that the “news” will be pretty stale by 9pm.

Presumably those who seek the Scottish news in television format will be watching STV at 6pm and it will be interesting to see the viewing figures there. At the end of the day it will be surprising, in any event, if the Scottish Nine news programme offers anything other than enhanced coverage of matters relevant to the Glasgow and Edinburgh conurbations. Time will tell. DAVID EDGAR

Dundas Street Stromness, Orkney I welcome the news of a new BBC Scottish TV channel but fear that with a budget of only £30m it is grossly underfunded, meaning there is a distinct danger it could easily degrade to a “Rob Roy White Heather” trash channel with Gaelic subtitles and flying saltires .

We have lots of Scottish artistic talent but need better funding to promote and develop the best. DENNIS FORBES GRATTAN

Mugiemoss Road Bucksburn, Aberdeen A lot of people are wondering how on earth BBC Scotland could fill a new one-hour news programme with unbiased, topical, challenging items. I don’t think this will be a problem if the Scottish Government is on the editorial board.

One idea would be to televise the delivery of each Baby Box. There are 55,000 births every year in Scotland, roughly 150 each day, so if each joyous occasion got 24 seconds coverage that would easily fill up an hour of Scottish news. You could even charge each family for a CD of the report for £100. That could raise £5.5m, which would go a long way to covering the £27m cost of the scheme ALLAN SUTHERLAND Willow Row, Stonehaven Oh goody, we are getting £30m more of our licence fee back, which takes BBC spending in Scotland back to the 2015 level for a five-hour offering at only £5m more than Channel Four is spending on the Great British Bake Off.

Scheduling a Scottish News at 9pm against the BBC and ITV primetime programmes will inevitably depress viewing figures and it seems a halfbaked response to demands for a proper BBC Scotland on BBC1

The autumn 2018 start date also raises the prospect of another independence referendum coverage being mainly seen through the prism of London-based pro-uk journalists, which destroyed trust in the BBC last time round.

It always strikes me as strange that those who think the BBC should subject the SNP to more scrutiny are utterly opposed to a Scottish channel or a Scottish Broadcasting Corporation but are happy to see London control the vast bulk of the news and current affairs beamed into Scotland using an agenda driven by the metropolitan right wing press.

MARY THOMAS Watson Crescent, Edinburgh