'Broadcasting', the Annan Committee was informed in 1975, 'plays a more important role in Wales than in any other part of the United Kingdom.' Indeed, contemporary Wales could be defined as an artefact produced by broadcasting.

This book traces the history of the BBC in Wales from the opening of Cardiff's radio station in February 1923 to the early 1990s, when public service broadcasting faced major new challenges.

The winning of a radio service for Wales in the mid 1930s provided the basis for greater successes in the future, in particular the establishment of the Welsh Fourth Channel (S4C) in 1982. The story is frequently dramatic: Welsh demands enraged John Reith in the 1930s; later they led to the establishment of BBC Wales, the Corporation's second television service; pressure for and resistance to Welsh-language broadcasts gave rise to considerable communal discord; the law-breaking broadcasting campaign of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg resulted in numerous court cases and culminated in Gwynfor Evans's threat to fast unto death and in a U-turn by the Thatcher government.

As well as being a history of broadcasting in Wales, this book is also a case study of the tension between BBC Head Office and the regions which has characterized the Corporation almost from the beginning. Although the institutional growth of the BBC in Wales is the author's central theme, he is also constantly concerned to emphasize what broadcasting is fundamentally about: people listening to and viewing programmes. This fascinating book contains many illustrations and includes extensive quotations from the rich archives of the BBC.

Please note that this title is out-of-print, although our American distributor, Paul & Company, still has a small number of copies in stock.