It will be the first new mainstream television channel from Scotland since the 1950s: featuring controversial drama, children's programmes, car shows for petrol heads' and cutting-edge news - but it will all be in Gaelic.

For many in Scotland it will also mean "Seirbheis dha na Gàidheil mu dheireadh thal" - a service for the Gaels at last.

Details of the nation's much anticipated Gaelic digital television channel, which has yet to have a formal name, have been revealed to The Herald.

They come in the week that the BBC Trust announced it will give its final decision on the service in late January next year, only two months before the channel is due to air.

The new channel will cost £17.9m a year, including £10.1m from the Gaelic Media Service and £7.8m from the BBC, who are partners in the exercise.

Its shows will not only to be aimed at the approximately 69,000 Gaels, but the 30,000 primarily English-speaking viewers who choose to tune into popular Gaelic BBC shows such as the current affairs programme Eorpa.

The Gaelic Media Service, which will run the channel, has also bought the back catalogue of the Gaelic programmes made over the years by Scottish Television: a huge amount of material which runs to more than 1000 hours.

The new station will broadcast every day for roughly seven hours: one-and-a-half hours, including a half-hour BBC News programme, will be original programming for the day, a figure which will rise to three hours in the next five years.

As well as many children's programmes, a number of shows will hope to replicate, in Gaelic, shows that run on mainstream television, and are planned to be viewable with English subtitles.

Air an Rathad - On the Road - will be a Gaelic Top Gear, with Gaelic presenters road testing a number of different vehicles around Scotland and Europe.

A contemporary music strand may be included which could be similar to the Rapal show currently made by the BBC, and the hillwalking show, Tir is Teanga, is likely to be featured as well as coverage of minority sports.

Alison Lang, corporate affairs officer for the Gaelic Media Service, said the key issue with new drama is cost, and that ideally the new station would be able to launch with a "flagship" soap or drama, but that is unlikely until around 2009.

However, the station is considering making a "post watershed teen drama" called Feith.

The story is based in a music and drama academy and around the typical rites of passage of young people.

"The themes are anything but tame," Ms Lang said. She said the strong storylines may prove controversial in the Gaelic community, but the channel will be competing for young viewers who have watched shows such as Skins or The OC.

"A lot of people may expect Gaelic programmes to be of a certain kind, all tweed and crofting," she added. "But we have to branch away from that, from what is safe."

Another project in production is a Scottish Gaelic version of an Irish teen drama called Aifric, about a high school student with typical teenage problems, while another will be Na Faileasan, an adaptation of a short story by Iain Crichton Smith.

The plot centres on a retired couple who are visited by a stranger who claims to have been at school with their son.

The Gaelic Media Service is also currently choosing from a number of comedy submissions from which they will commission new shows.

Ms Lang said the recent re-scheduling of the final decision on the service by the BBC Trust had not endangered the launch date of the service.

"The move to the end of January does not change the overall timetable," she said.

"Both we and the BBC are confident the launch of the channel will go ahead as planned."

A history of Gaelic speaking TV programmes

  • The first BBC radio broadcast in the Gaelic language was aired throughout Scotland in 1923. It was a 15-minute religious address by the Rev John Bain, recorded in the High United Free Church, Aberdeen.
  • An early Gaelic TV programme in the light entertainment category was Se Ur Beatha in 1964. The first current affairs television series, Bonn Comhraidh, was launched in 1970.
  • Telefios was a Scottish Gaelic language news programme, which was broadcast on both Grampian Television and STV in the late 1990s but was cancelled in 2000.
  • Eorpa is the leading current affairs programme made by the BBC: an award winning show which looks at Gaelic culture in its European context.
  • Dotaman - which means "spinning top" - is one of the oldest Gaelic children's programmes, and began its run in 1985.
  • Machair was a drama, or soap, filmed on Lewis by STV, which ran from 1993 to 1998.
  • Tir is Teangh is a popular hiking and hill walking show made by BBC, the third series of which ran earlier this year.
  • BBC Alba also make a comedy series, Air ais air an Ran Dan.