The future of S4C

An announcement is expected on Wednesday that the BBC is to take over funding for Welsh-language channel S4C.

BBC News

The BBC licence fee is to be frozen at the current level of £145.50 for the next six years, a 16% cut in real terms... Among the extra commitments the BBC has signed up to are to fund the World Service and Welsh-language broadcaster S4C out of the licence fee from 2015.

The Guardian

Background
The UK's new Government is carrying out one of the most significant "funding review" in modern times. Faced with debts that are projected to run into the hundreds of billions b the end of their first term (2014-15), it is cutting budgets left, right and centre to reduce our national dependence on money we simply don't have.

Areas seen as politically-sensitive -- hospitals and schools specifically -- have been ring-fenced, but the scope of the Government's cuts should not be underestimated: the armed forces, prison service, and justice system all face massive belt-tightening exercises over the coming months. In the military, 50,000 job losses were announced today alone.

No money, mo' problems
With a nigh-on guaranteed income of £3.45 billion a year¹, funded directly by the television-watching public, the BBC now finds itself in the sights of a Government looking for easy targets. The relationship between the BBC and the Conservatives has never been particularly cosy: it will be tested like never before tomorrow, when Chancellor George Osbourne is expected to hand the BBC responsibility for three major projects previously paid for from direct taxation:

1. The BBC World Service. Paid for from the Foreign Office's budget until now, the World Service provides radio, internet and television services across the world. It is extremely well-respected and revered by those to whom it provides a vital service: the propagation of news in regions where media plurality is scarce (or forbidden).
   
2. BBC Monitoring. The eyes and ears of the Government, Monitoring watches and listens to broadcasts from nations and governments around the world, gathering vast amounts of "open source intelligence". Funded, until now, by a variety of Government departments.
   
3. S4C. Funded directly by Government until now (£100million a year), the Welsh-language broadcaster was established in 1982 under Margaret Thatcher's (Conservative) government as an "investment in social harmony"². It is undergoing tumultuous change: it is now facing the biggest crisis of it's history.

The problems facing S4C are thus:

• S4C broadcasts exclusively in Welsh. There are an estimated 611,000 Welsh-speakers in Wales. For any commercial broadcaster, this is already a minuscule "target audience".
  
• S4C's sponsors - the companies that pay for advertising on the channel - recognise there is little if any money to be made from Welsh. I watch the channel only occasionally, but the only ads I have seen in Cymraeg are those from Government departments.
  
• Of the 611,000, only a tiny proportion are watching some of S4C's programming. Cyw, the station's children's programming strand is critically-acclaimed and (apparently) very popular with the kids... but their viewing habits aren't recorded and don't contribute to viewing figures. Moreover, pre-schoolers don't have a lot of spending power.
  
• If you believe the hype, linear television is dying. S4C has three television channels, one of which broadcasts part-time during the day, one that carries the same shows in HD, and the other that carries coverage of the Welsh Assembly. Not exactly water-cooler television.
  
• A huge rift has developed between the station's management and the "executive" designed to oversee it. This has led to two high-profile resignations in as many months. The ship is listing, and the captain has just nicked-off in a lifeboat.

This makes grim reading. Last month, the Government told it to cut its budget by 40%. Now, it plans to cut it's funding to precisely zero and hand responsibility to fund the channel over to a soft target cash-cow the BBC.

To me, this measure doesn't go far enough.

BBC SC?
The BBC should be given complete control over S4C, which should cease as a commercial service with immediate effect.

Why? Because it would fit perfectly with the Beeb's existing set-up. It already provides S4C with programming 'free of charge' - news, soaps, documentaries, sport... the list goes on. Wales has a thriving independent production community - this can only benefit from a Welsh television channel with a secured future.

Away from TV, BBC Radio Cymru would be an ideal partner for the television channel. It would also be complemented by an improved online presence, access to the iPlayer, YouView, SeeSaw, bbc.co.uk...

There's more: the S4C Executive would be replaced by the BBC Trust: look, Mr Cameron! I've just scrapped a Quango!

The BBC already operates BBC Alba, a Gaelic service (of which there are supposed to be 58,652 speakers in Scotland) comprising a television channel, radio station and website (for what that's worth). It has developed a local service on limited funds from scratch. With the strong foundations laid down by S4C, it can do so much more in Wales.

This move will hit the BBC, but there are plenty of places it can trim fat -- and the Government knows that all too well. It wouldn't have entrusted the future of an entire language to the Corporation, otherwise.

¹ - 2009-10 figures
² - The Guardian