On 9 November 2017, the RT channel launched The Alex Salmond Show, with the first episode airing a week later. Salmond stated that his performance at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival as part of his Alex Salmond: Unleashed tour inspired him to create the talk show. Salmond's successor as Scotland's first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said she would have advised against his decision to host a programme on RT. Salmond was criticised by Scottish politicians from the other parties for a perceived lack of judgement. The first show was broadcast on 16 November 2017; the main interviewee was Carles Puigdemont, the former president of Catalonia.
Premise
The show begins with Alex Salmond greeting the audience, he then reads tweets, letters and e-mails that are sent in by members of the public, afterwards, Alex Salmond introduces the State Your Case section of the show where he introduces a fellow guest who expresses their opinions on a certain subject and afterwards Salmond and the guest would discuss and debate on the issue raised. Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh then introduces a topical political issue and interviews an individual involved in that subject. Salmond would then engage the guest with a friendly chat about the guest's personal life.
Reception
The first episode of the programme received mixed reviews. Many viewers praised the subject of LGBT rights being raised as well as praising Salmond for interviewing ousted Catalan president Carles Puigdemont.
Controversy and criticism
Broadcast on RT
After it was announced that The Alex Salmond Show would be airing on RT, Salmond received cross-party criticism from politicians and journalists who accused him of launching a new programme on a "Kremlin propaganda channel". A number of invited guests rejected offers to appear on the show as it was being aired on RT. In the wake of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, critics called for Salmond to cancel The Alex Salmond Show with some raising questions regarding editorial independence. Salmond defended the show and insisted that he had full editorial control of the programme with no interference from RT.
After the first episode had aired, it emerged that tweets and e-mails which Salmond read out on the show had not actually been sent in by members of the public. One was presented as coming from a Twitter account that did not appear to have posted it, while a second only appeared online several hours after the programme was broadcast. After an investigation, the media regulator Ofcom declared that the show had breached broadcasting rules by being "materially misleading" and undermining viewers' trust. However, RT criticised Ofcom's investigation and attributed the issue to a "trivial teething problem."
