S4C

The Chair of Welsh–language broadcaster S4C, who has been in post for six months, was talking to BBC Cymru Wales’ media and arts correspondent Huw Thomas.

“The sector is full of creative people… with bold ideas. I want to see S4C being a home for those ideas,” said Williams. “We want to work with large stable companies who can provide that certainty to us with regards to programming, but we also want to work with smaller companies and even people who haven’t produced for anybody in the past.”

This month, Owen Evans celebrates three years as Chief Executive of S4C.

It’s been “a very busy time”, says Evans, pointing to a move to a new Carmarthen HQ, a deal with the BBC to broadcast from the corporation’s new Central Square base in Cardiff and improved digital services.

It was the measure of her professionalism and wit that she could offer advice while gently chiding her fellow continuity announcers.

Mari Griffith, though, was much more than a radio announcer. She was, in turn, a singer, presenter, independent producer and, in her later years, a successful novelist. Mari, who has died at the age of 79, was also a long-standing RTS Wales Centre Committee member.

For the past 12 months, the message from Westminster regarding BBC Charter review has been that nothing would happen before the election. Now, of course, it’s as if a starting pistol has been fired.

This is particularly so with sections of the press going into a frenzy of anticipation, based on certain previous statements by the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, John Whittingdale.

In Wales, the interviews I’ve been asked to do as Chair of S4C have all been about what it might mean for the future of the Welsh-language channel.