Media of Wales

The media in Wales provide services in both English and Welsh, and play a role in modern Welsh culture. BBC Wales broadcasts since the 1930s have helped to promote a form of standardised spoken Welsh,[1] and one historian has argued that the concept of Wales as a single national entity owes much to modern broadcasting.[2] The national broadcasters are based in the capital, Cardiff.

Broadcasting

History

Plaque commemorating the first broadcast in Wales on 13 February 1923

At 5pm on 13 February 1923, 5WA Cardiff, a forerunner of BBC Radio Wales, first broadcast from a music shop at 19 Castle Street in Cardiff city centre, starting at 5pm. Later that evening at 9.30pm Mostyn Thomas, sang Dafydd y Garreg Wen, which was the first Welsh language song to be broadcast. A commemorative plaque records the event.[3] 5WA Cardiff was a radio service which began broadcasting on 13 February 1923 and ended on 28 May 1923.[4]

Television

BBC Wales is based in Broadcasting House, Llandaff, northern Cardiff and provides BBC One Wales and BBC Two Wales television channels. BBC Wales produces the most-watched Welsh news programme BBC Wales Today, current affairs programme Week In Week Out, sports coverage in Scrum V and Sport Wales, science-fiction programmes including Doctor Who and Torchwood, and factual programmes such as X-Ray.

ITV Wales is based in Culverhouse Cross, western Cardiff and produces regional news and factual programmes such as Wales Tonight, Wales This Week, Sharp End and The Wales Show.

S4C is the main Welsh-language station and has its headquarters in Llanishen, northern Cardiff. The channel features around 10 hours a week of programmes made in Welsh by BBC Wales, such as Newyddion (News) and Pobol y Cwm (a long-running soap opera) as well as programmes made by independent production companies.

Radio

Main article: Radio in Wales

The BBC produces two national radio stations, BBC Radio Wales in English and BBC Radio Cymru in Welsh. A third national service is provided by Real Radio Wales. There are also a number of commercial and community radio stations throughout the country which broadcast in both Welsh and English.

Rank Radio station Location Weekly reach (Dec 2014)[5]
1 Heart Cardiff Cardiff (Bay) 497,000
2 Radio Wales Cardiff (Llandaff) 427,000
3 Capital Cardiff Cardiff (Bay) 207,000
4 Nation Radio Cardiff (Bay) 176,000
5 Capital North West and Wales Wrexham 174,000
6 The Wave Gowerton 138,000
7 Heart North Wales Wrexham 107,000
8 Radio Cymru Cardiff (Llandaff) 106,000
9 Smooth North Wales Cardiff (Bay) 74,000
10 Swansea Sound Gowerton 69,000
11 Smooth South Wales Cardiff (Bay) 59,000
12 Smooth North Wales Cardiff (Bay) 74,000
13 Radio Pembrokeshire Narbeth 45,000
14 Bridge FM Bridgend 43,000
15 Nation Hits Neath 42,000
16 Radio Carmarthenshire Narbeth 39,000
17 Radio Ceredigion Narbeth 18,000

Print

Newspapers and news magazines

Unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland, the Welsh national press is limited. The only English-language Wales-based national newspaper is the Western Mail, produced by Trinity Mirror. Its Sunday counterpart is the Wales on Sunday. When Wales won the Six Nations Grand Slam in 2005 the Wales on Sunday almost doubled its sales.

One study in the 1990s found that the most widely read newspaper in Wales was The Sun.[6] Despite the popularity of London-based newspapers in Wales, most UK newspapers do not produce regional editions for the Welsh audience, although until 2003 The Mirror was branded as the Welsh Mirror. Since the 1970s, there has been a decline in the number of Fleet Street newspaper journalists based in Wales; now all national UK newspapers rely on the Press Association reporter in Wales.[7]

The most popular local newspapers are the Cardiff-based South Wales Echo, the Swansea-based South Wales Evening Post, and the Newport-based South Wales Argus. The North Wales edition of the Liverpool Daily Post is distributed in that region. The Evening Leader is the main evening newspaper for North East Wales. A Welsh-language daily newspaper, Y Byd ("The World"), was planned to launch in Spring 2007, but it failed to publish due to a lack of funding.

Golwg (Welsh for "View", Welsh pronunciation: [ˈɡɔlʊk]) is a Welsh-language magazine established in 1988. It covers current events and features and claims a monthly circulation of 12,000, the largest circulation of any magazine in Wales. Recently, Golwg360 was launched as a website offering daily Welsh and international news in Welsh with over 100,000 visits per month.

Cambria, the National Magazine of Wales, published bi-monthly, is a high quality glossy covering the arts, current affairs, topical subjects, history and life style. It aims to give a picture of Wales today within the context of its history.

Planet, a bi-monthly magazine covering the arts, literature and politics in Wales and the wider world, is produced in Aberystwyth. Each edition features poems and short stories alongside cultural reviews and political analysis.[8]

A Welsh edition of the Times Educational Supplement, called TES Cymru, dedicates a number of pages of coverage to the country's devolved education system, with a reporter based in Cardiff.

Y Cymro (Welsh for The Welshman, Welsh pronunciation: [ə ˈkəmrɔ]) is a Welsh language weekly newspaper, first published in 1932 with an estimated circulation of 4,000.

Your Wedding Day is the biggest bridal magazine in Wales.

Furthermore, Wales has a vibrant network of local Welsh-language newsletters. Known as papurau bro ("local papers"), they are produced by volunteers and generally published monthly. The first such publication was Y Dinesydd ("The Citizen"), established in Cardiff in April 1973. There are currently 58 papurau bro, produced throughout Wales.

Zines

There are a large number of specialist zines produced in Wales, including Gagged! the South Wales anarchist newsletter, The Free Flyer the free paper for "Brecon, Builth, Crickhowell, Hay on Wye, Llandovery, Llandrindod, Llanwrtyd, Talgarth and Rhayader", and the 'Cambrian snooze' newsletter in Aberystwyth.

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Welsh Academy Encyclopedia of Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press 2008
  2. ↑ Davies, J. (1994) Broadcasting and the BBC in Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
  3. ↑ "Broadcasting in Wales: 90 years since BBC went on air". Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  4. ↑ "5WA Cardiff Listings". Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  5. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-31136252
  6. ↑ Mackay, H. and Powell, A. (1997) 'Wales and its Media. Production, Consumption and Regulation'. Contemporary Wales vol. 9, pp. 8-39.
  7. ↑ Williams, K. (2000) 'No Dreads, only Some Doubts: The Press and the Referendum Campaign' in Barry Jones, J. and Balsom, D. (eds) The Road to the National Assembly for Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
  8. ↑ Planet Magazine
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