THE future of Gaelic soap Bannan has been secured for the next four years following the signing of an international deal for the series.

The four-year deal will increase production capacity and has been hailed as a major boost for Gaelic creative skills.

The Gaelic Media Service (MG Alba), one of the partners behind BBC Alba which screens Bannan, is now calling for more investment in programming from the BBC.

“Whilst we are determined to ensure every pound we spend works as hard as it can for the BBC Alba audience, it must be acknowledged that there is a limit to what can be achieved with our current budget and that more investment in programming is required,” said Maggie Cunningham, chairwoman of MG Alba.

Launching MG Alba’s annual report, she added that many of the challenges BBC Alba had faced were still present in the wake of the Charter renewal process, and that MG Alba was still pressing the case for more new content.

“A key tenet of MG ALBA’s strategy is to encourage international co-productions from our producers,’’ she said.

‘‘This has involved significant work with our independent producers and we are now starting to see this work come to fruition, with £950,000 of added value for the channel already coming from current long-term deals as a result of collaboration.

"A fine example of this is Port, a musical series presented by Julie Fowlis that has enjoyed significant acclaim from audiences in Scotland and Ireland. With the advent of the new BBC Scotland channel, we will explore opportunities that this may give us.”

Cunningham added that research showed BBC Alba was being challenged by new digital platforms in much the same way as UK network channels were.

“It is vital that we are equipped to provide a service to our younger demographic in a way that is accessible and engaging, and we will be bringing forward new initiatives to address this over the coming months and years,” she said.

The success of Bannan has led to an international deal being signed for the series with DRG, one of the leading independent distributors in the world.

Filmed on the Isle of Skye, and produced by The Inbetweeners’ Chris Young, 23 episodes of Bannan have been produced since 2014, with five of those due to be aired on BBC Alba in the autumn.

The new contract with Young Films, running until 2021, will lead to at least 20 episodes being produced for the channel.

“The development of drama was a key milestone for BBC Alba and, since it was first broadcast in 2014, Bannan has proved popular with both our core Gaelic audience and non-Gaelic speakers alike,” said Cunningham. “In recent years we have awarded a number of multi-year volume deals to producers for other genres and seen resulting cost savings and collaborations, which in turn has allowed more new programmes to be made.

‘‘MG Alba believes longer-term planning for Bannan can bring similar benefits and also that such strategic investment in drama enables us to create a strong creative foundation that benefits the future of Gaelic on screen, by strengthening the skills vital to telling our stories.”

Chris Young of Young Films said he was “absolutely delighted” about the deal.

“My dream was always to create a popular and successful long-running Gaelic language drama that works for Gaelic, national and international audiences. Thanks to support from MG Alba, Creative Scotland and the Scottish Government as well as the outstanding contribution from everyone in the Bannan team, this has now become a reality.

“With this new deal we have a unique opportunity to take our storylines and characters in unexpected and exciting directions. It also gives us scope to develop our training programme on a more strategic basis. We hope to do this in partnership with MG Alba and agencies such as Skills Development Scotland, Creative Scotland, BBC, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig and others.”