10th June 2008
Welsh Vistas
The King Report on the BBC and the Celtic nations is about to be published. All the indications are that the report is going to be pretty critical of the current regime. Mark Thompson’s commitment that 5% of BBC network production will be made in Wales by 2016 - confirmed before the Broadcasting Committee at the Assembly by Menna Richards - may be something of a pre-emptive defence. Maybe my threat last summer to withhold my licence fee had some effect after all. Sadly, I think threatening to stop watching Coronation Street is unlikely to have the same effect on Michael Grade.
As a modern European nation, with a fledgling democracy, it really is vital we stop seeing the world through the wrong end of someone else’s telescope. We also need to see our reality reflected on our television, computer and iPod screens. London-centricity is a little like a neurological disease - it infects all those who work in the media metropolis. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to accept it. In a few years time, maybe even media executives in north London will realise there’s more to Wales than quirkily ironic Pot noodle ads and a flourishing Welsh film and television scene will even have tempted Mathew Rhys and Ioan Gruffydd back from California.
Oh, well, we’ve all got to dream.
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