Category Archives: Industry

Getting a Foot in the Door – Increasing Diversity in Film in Wales

What’s not to like about a scheme which tackles more than one problem at a time? Ffilm Cymru Wales has launched Foot in the Door / Troed yn y Drws  focused on a large group of people in Wales who are currently hampered by exclusion from the workforce, while the workforce is hampered by losing out on their skills. Continue reading Getting a Foot in the Door – Increasing Diversity in Film in Wales

Contestable Funding for PSB genres – good for Wales?

A pot of £60 million to boost production in under-served genres of Public Service Broadcasting on TV and Radio sounds like good news but the DCMS consultation document gives cause for concern to the Nations and Regions.

Nowhere in the document is there evidence of an adequate understanding of the position of PSB output in Wales. Continue reading Contestable Funding for PSB genres – good for Wales?

National Assembly of Wales Inquiry into the Future of S4C

The Media Policy Group of the Institute of Welsh Affairs made a submission on 3rd March to the Inquiry into the future of S4C which is being held by the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee of the National Assembly of Wales.

This inquiry precedes that expected from the DCMS.

Continue reading National Assembly of Wales Inquiry into the Future of S4C

Big Ambitions in “The Big Picture”

Any report whose first word is ‘Although’ is usually heading for a ‘Nevertheless’. ‘Although’ signals an intention to strike out beyond, or push ahead despite, some obstacle, towards a goal that requires a creative sense of the possibilities in a situation and not just the limits.

Hence the significance of the opening sentence of the report from the National Assembly’s Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee: The Big Picture: The Committee’s Initial Views on Broadcasting in Wales.

“Although most aspects of broadcasting and media policy are not devolved to Wales, the role of broadcasters and the media in Wales is of enormous cultural and political importance.”

This simple statement is evidence of an important stage in the maturation of the devolutionary process. Here are AMs, demonstrating, once again, a determination to inhabit as fully as possible the available terrain. Notably, this does not address the issue of the devolution of media policy. It works with present capacity, with what is possible now. Continue reading Big Ambitions in “The Big Picture”

Waiting for the Money – Funding English Language TV in Wales

Sodom and Gomorrah came to mind.  I was watching  the Assembly’s Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee’s scrutiny session with Lord Tony Hall last month. The Director General of the BBC proved himself cannier than God – at least on the issue of funding for English language television for Wales. Continue reading Waiting for the Money – Funding English Language TV in Wales