This study provides an insight into the history of one of Wales’ most important cultural organisation. It provides a detailed insight into the key decisions and debates from within S4C. It contains interviews with key individuals who were part of the debates and discussions providing significant context to those debates.

Despite the growing body of work on the media in Wales, very little exists on the history of commercial television in Wales. This book seeks to address this imbalance by tracing the growth and development of ITV in Wales and assessing its contribution to the life of the nation. ITV has been a powerful force in British broadcasting since its inception in 1955. When commercial television came to Wales for the first time in 1958, it immediately got caught up in with matters of national identity, language and geography. Compared with the BBC, it is a relative newcomer; its growth was slower than that of the BBC and it took until 1962 to complete the network across the UK. Once it had arrived, however, its impact was considerable. The book will provide an historical narrative and critical analysis of independent television (ITV) in Wales from 1958 up until the present day.

This text commences with the opening of the Cardiff BBC station in February 1923 and ends with a consideration of the impact of the reforms of John Birt in the early 1990s. It portrays the tension between Head Office and the regions which has characterized the Corporation from the beginning. The role of the Directors General from Reith onwards is examined, with extensive quotations from the archives at Caversham and Llandaf. Considerable attention is given to the war years when the Welsh region was the only part of the BBC to produce a significant number of programmes for its own listeners. separate radio service for Wales, were exactly replicated with the coming of television. The establishment of the television service - BBC Wales - is discussed in some detail, as is the way in which Controller Wales used the advent of commercial television to extract concessions from Head Office. Welsh-language television are a major theme of the second half of the book. The government's decision, in 1979, to renege on its promise concerning the Welsh Fourth channel led to Gwynfor Evans's threat to fast to death and to Whitelaw's change of policy - a rare U-turn by the Thatcher government. The continuing role of sound broadcasting is stressed, as is the significance of the establishment of Radio Wales and Radio Cymru. Wales, it is constantly concerned to emphasize what broadcasting is fundamentally about: people listening to and viewing programmes.

Despite the growing body of work on the media in Wales, very little exists on the history of commercial television in Wales. This book seeks to address this imbalance by tracing the growth and development of ITV in Wales and assessing its contribution to the life of the nation. ITV has been a powerful force in British broadcasting since its inception in 1955. When commercial television came to Wales for the first time in 1958, it immediately got caught up in with matters of national identity, language and geography. Compared with the BBC, it is a relative newcomer; its growth was slower than that of the BBC and it took until 1962 to complete the network across the UK. Once it had arrived, however, its impact was considerable. The book will provide an historical narrative and critical analysis of independent television (ITV) in Wales from 1958 up until the present day.

An edited transcript of an IWA-Ofcom seminar on the Future of Broadcasting in Wales.