Wales

BBC announces major investment in Scotland and Wales

BBC Scotland

The corporation is launching a new English-language channel in the nation.

From September 2018, BBC Scotland will broadcast nightly from 7pm, and will contain its own hour-long nightly news programme at 9pm (15 minutes at 7pm weekends) which will be edited and presented from Scotland.

The BBC is investing £19m in the channel and in surrounding digital developments, and will oversee the creation of around 80 new journalist posts. Together with existing funding, that will give the channel an initial budget of around £30m.

New Channel 4 thriller Born to Kill has begun filming

Born to Kill is the first commission for female writing duo Tracey Malone (who also wrote BBC One's Rillington Place) and BIFA-nominated actress Kate Ashfield.

This series stars Romola Garai (who starred in Atonement and Suffragette) and Daniel Mays (Made in Dagenham) as the single parents of two out-of-control teens.

Channel 4's thriller is a look into the mind of Sam (played by Jack Rowan) who’s on the verge of acting out hidden psychopathic desires. The past comes back to haunt everyone and years of deceit escape from the woodwork.

BBC reaches record online audience for England v Wales Euro '16 clash

Overall on Thursday, 14.6million browsers across the globe logged on to the BBC Sport website to see coverage of the Euro 2016 tournament, which included Northern Ireland's 2-0 win against Ukraine.

Barbara Slater, Director of BBC Sport, said: "Our enhanced service, in addition to our first class TV and radio coverage, puts audiences at the very heart of the Euro 2016 action wherever they are, allowing them to follow the action however they wish."

ITV commissions new series from Griff Rhys Jones

Griff Rhys Jones Great Welsh Adventure

Actor and presenter Griff Rhys Jones is following the success of A Great Welsh Adventure with Griff’s Great Britain, produced by Modern Television for ITV.

The eight part series will see Rhys Jones explore Britain’s landscape, from downs and wolds to coasts and highlands, unearthing quirky facts along the way.

Each week, he will encounter a new, and often bizarre, challenge, from finding a golden eagle to hunting a vampire.

Our friend in the West

One of the best contributions to the issue of the public purposes of the BBC was written almost 20 years ago by a then-future Chair of the BBC Board of Governors, Gavyn Davies.

He wrote: “Some form of market failure must lie at the heart of any concept of public service broadcasting. Beyond simply using the catchphrase that public service broadcasting must ‘inform, educate and entertain’, we must add ‘inform, educate and entertain in a way that the private sector, left unregulated, would not do’. Otherwise, why not leave matters entirely to the private sector?”