I NOTE with interest your report on Nicola Sturgeon's proposals for broadcasting in Scotland (“Sturgeon calls for new Scots channels in BBC revolution”, The Herald, August 27). She is misguided.

The BBC already has a TV station primarily for viewers in Scotland called BBC Alba. Unfortunately, it currently transmits mainly in the language Gaelic, spoken and understood by fewer than 60,00 people in Scotland and it provides nothing for Scotland's other and growing minority languages and cultures.

While there is no need or prospect of a second English-language channel in Scotland, there is a high probability, following the BBC Green Paper consultation, of BBC Alba being adapted to serve all of Scotland's communities and take all BBC output primarily for Scotland beyond news. This will avoid jarring schedule blanking on Freeview of BBC network programmes and will allow programming originated in Scotland for network transmission to receive appropriate investment and a wider audience .

Contrast this speech with that from Armando Iannucci where he argued brilliantly against "diminishing the national broadcaster" (“Ianucco: Messing with BBC would be madness”, The Herald, August 27). The difference is apparent.

John McAleer,

24 Clelland Avenue, Bishopbriggs.

NICOLA Sturgeon's proposals for a federal structure for the BBC merit consideration but surely little more than that. We already have BBC Alba, which is hardly a good advert for yet another Scottish channel.

My main fear is that the tentacles of the Scottish Government would slowly reach out to an independent BBC Scotland's board and cause any new channel to become the propaganda tool of central government. In Police Scotland, we have already seen the effects of Scottish Government control and it's definitely not an improvement upon what existed before.

Bob MacDougall,

Oxhill, Kippen, Stirlingshire.

IAN Johnstone (Letters, August 27) is right to question the role of the BBC. It is worrying that there is such widespread childlike trust in the essential benevolence and impartiality of the BBC (despite clear evidence to the contrary). Any state broadcaster is by definition at risk of becoming the tool of the state, although here it is probably more the tool of the British establishment than the government of the day.

I have yet to hear a sensible argument made for having any state broadcaster. At a time when there is a huge range of TV and radio broadcasting it is ludicrous to argue that there is a need for a state broadcaster. If there is a demand for so-called "quality" programming the private sector will meet it - why would it not?

At worst a state broadcaster is sinister, invariably self-promoting, and at best paternalistic (although it must be conceded many seem to yearn for just such paternalism).. A recent justification in the Radio Times under the alarmingly jingoistic heading "British is Best" includes the assertion [the BBC] "unifies the UK" – Orwell could not have put it better. One of the attractions of Scottish independence is escaping this pervasive narrow-minded nationalism.

Alan Oliver,

Battock Road, Brightons, near Falkirk.