Category Archives: Media

IWA Media Audit – Dialogue and Debate

October 23, 2015Blog, Industry, Media, Uncategorizedangela

Throughout the past week the Media Policy Group of the Institute of Welsh Affairs has been publishing its draft analysis of the state of main media sectors in Wales. This approach has allowed us to receive valuable feedback on our chapters on the radio industry and the press that will be incorporated into the final report. This will be launched at the Cardiff Media Summit on November 11th. We have also had the benefit of expert comment pieces carried on the IWA site and look forward to more. It is proving to be a good experience of dialogue around these important issues and of the kind of debate about them that has long been called for in Wales.

The analysis we have laid out is sobering. Continue reading IWA Media Audit – Dialogue and Debate →

Media in Wales – A Democratic Necessity

October 13, 2015Blog, Industry, Mediaangela

Media in Wales – A Democratic Necessity

Lee Waters and Angela Graham introduce the first part of the IWA Wales Media Audit.

This post first appeared on the IWA clickonwales site October 13th 2015

Continue reading Media in Wales – A Democratic Necessity →

British, Bold, Creative – for all of us in Wales?

September 8, 2015Blog, Industry, Television, Uncategorizedangela

British, Bold, Creative: a catchy, punchy title for the BBC’s statement of its plans for the next decade and beyond but, read from the point of view of the Welsh bit of ‘British’, the contents are something of a curate’s egg.

One sees the effort to engage with the Nations and Regions. There are suggestions about reconfiguring the delivery of news and about opening up platforms for a wider sharing of materials. The aspirations are right, as in section 7.3 Entertaining the whole UK:

Firstly, we will improve how we portray and represent the different Nations of the UK on our pan-UK network services. Secondly, we will strengthen the services for each Nation.

Then comes a very big ‘but’:

But significant new investment in a broader range of programming, such as drama, comedy and entertainment, cannot be delivered within the current Budget agreement with the Government… funding these ambitions would require additional income. Continue reading British, Bold, Creative – for all of us in Wales? →

Beyond Rhetoric – IWA Media Policy for Wales

August 4, 2015Blog, Industry, Media, PortfolioTelevisionangela

“as slow to be set on fire as a stomach”

I wondered, while listening to Rhodri Talfan Davies speak this week on two occasions at the National Eisteddfod, if some version of that sentiment ever entered his mind. It certainly entered mine. It’s a striking phrase coined by George Eliot to express her frustration at her contemporaries’ failure to grasp the spirit of the times. How slow we are – those of us not touched by genius such as hers ̶ to see the writing on the cultural wall in front of us. A new dispensation is coming and we need the ideas to meet it.

Continue reading Beyond Rhetoric – IWA Media Policy for Wales →

Radio 4: Prayer for the Day

July 23, 2015Media, PortfolioRadio, Radioangela

Radio 4 Prayer for the Day

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Angela Graham

July 25th, 27th -31st

Scampi and the Meaning of Life – TV and Culture in Wales

July 21, 2015Blog, Industry, Televisionangela

I don’t know if anyone ever addresses Lord Hall of Birkenhead, Director General of the BBC, as ‘butt’. I suppose I’m unlikely to find out as he probably has more pressing questions to answer in these days of Charter Renewal debate. Nonetheless the question came to me as I reflected on a blog I wrote yesterday attempting to unpack what Tony Hall meant when he used the word ‘culture’ in a speech in Cardiff in 2014.

there are some aspects of national life in Wales that are not sufficiently captured by the BBC’s own television services in Wales, and I would include comedy, entertainment and culture in those categories

Tony Hall

I don’t want to treat that speech as some gospel to be mined for esoteric meanings and yet light did dawn, and the clue was an in example of one of the genres whose erosion he lamented in that text. He named comedy, entertainment and culture as genres whose production has been eroded, in the last decade, on English language television in Wales. I found myself thinking about a comedy series which, in my view, is one of the best BBC Wales has ever made. Continue reading Scampi and the Meaning of Life – TV and Culture in Wales →

Hungry Wales in an Age of TV Plenty

July 20, 2015Blog, Industry, Media, Portfolio, Television, Uncategorizedangela

If a thing is repeated often enough it begins to be as persuasive as though it were true.

We’ve never had it so good, apparently. We live in a televisual Age of Plenty with digital wares piled high in the marketplace and so it’s time for the BBC to withdraw from universality and to stop disadvantaging the commercial sector by its scale and success; the level of public funding gives the BBC an unfair advantage over its competitors and the BBC should become more ‘distinctive’, confining itself to things the market can’t or won’t provide.

Continue reading Hungry Wales in an Age of TV Plenty →

BBC CHARTER RENEWAL and WALES – THE INVISIBLE NATION

July 17, 2015Media, Portfolio, PortfolioTelevision, Televisionangela

From the many strands in the Government Green Paper on BBC Charter Renewal I’d like to tease out two. A failure to convince the UK that these strands are vital parts of the broadcasting web, and not mere loose ends, will cost us dear in Wales.

Continue reading BBC CHARTER RENEWAL and WALES – THE INVISIBLE NATION →

Regulating the Regulators – the Press Recognition Panel and Wales

July 16, 2015Industry, Media, Portfolio, PortfolioPrint, Print, Uncategorizedangela

We all remember Leveson. And we still hear late rumblings from that consideration of corruption in the UK press as well as continuing debate as to how best to deal with it. A need for regulation was generally acknowledged but what system should be used? The compromise reached was the creation of self-regulators overseen by a Recognition Panel established by Royal Charter and the Panel came to Cardiff on 14th July.

The Press Recognition Panel held a consultative session in the School of Journalism, Cardiff on the criteria to be used when assessing applicants for recognition. This consultation process ends on 31^st July. Continue reading Regulating the Regulators – the Press Recognition Panel and Wales →

TV for Wales – in both languages

July 15, 2015Blog, Media, Television, Uncategorizedangela

It’s not just S4C that is threatened by potential changes. It is television for Wales as a whole, if the latest BBC Wales Annual Review 2014-15 by Audience Council Wales is anything to go by.

This Review, for 2014 – 15, makes alarming reading, particularly as it comes hot on the heels of Ofcom’s recent special additional report on PSB in the internet age: The Nations of the UK and their regions and the bombshell about funding burdens for the BBC lobbed by the Chancellor while no one was looking. It appears the day before the Green Paper on BBC Charter Renewal is expected but it shouldn’t get lost in the sturm und drang that that is likely to produce because it has significant things to say about television in Wales. Continue reading TV for Wales – in both languages →