Following the BBC Trust consultation in November 2007, the Audience Council Scotland recommended their support for the creation of the service on 7 December 2007, stating that the Trust should pursue carriage of the service on digital terrestrial television and that the existing "Gaelic zone" programming on BBC Scotland should remain after the launch.

[citation needed] The channel began broadcasting on satellite at 9:00 pm on 19 September 2008 with a launch video featuring a new rendition of the Runrig song, Alba.

), a drama-documentary produced by STV Productions, was shown at 10:30 pm before the opening night closed with the second half of the live cèilidh from Skye.

[citation needed] A study carried out for the channel indicated that 650,000 people watched BBC Alba per week in the first two months of broadcasting, in spite of only being available to around a third of Scots.

On 8 September 2022, BBC Alba had to pause programming at around 6:30pm due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

BBC Alba broadcasts more Scottish sport than any other channel, with over three hours a week of football, rugby and shinty.

[citation needed] Output on the channel consists of news, current affairs, sport, drama, documentary, entertainment, education, religion and children's programming, broadcast on most days between 5 pm and midnight.

[citation needed] BBC Alba concentrates on four sports: football, rugby, shinty,[17] and curling.

[18] During the 2009–10 season, the station broadcast one full Scottish Premier League game every Saturday night.

[19] The game selected was always one not covered by either live Sky Sports or on an on-demand basis by BT Vision and was shown three hours after the end of the match.

[21] BBC Alba then started broadcasting First Division games, beginning with the match between Airdrie United and Clyde on 22 February 2009.

These include: The Gaelic community, including writers Aonghas MacNeacail,[25][26] Angus Peter Campbell,[27] Lisa Storey [27] and musician Allan MacDonald,[citation needed] have criticised the non-availability of Gaelic subtitles, and the emphasis on English-language interviews and reportage in the channel's content for adults.

The decision to introduce 'red button facilities' to allow viewers to switch to English-language sports commentary, first announced in August 2014 for rugby and the Guinness Pro12 series, was heavily criticised by the Gaelic community.

[29] The criticism resulted in MG Alba announcing publicly in the West Highland Free Press that the 'red button option' for English-language commentary would not expand to other sports or areas of the channel.