Home - Talking Wales

Re-imagining the news media landscape of Wales

talking wales - A new kind of news service for Wales.

How we discover, access, and receive news has changed substantially over the past two decades.

Advances in technology, the internet, smart phones and improved connectivity has seen a huge shift online. Newspaper sales have fallen year on year, they are now nearing a point where they will cease to be commercially viable.

Traditional news providers have struggled to make sufficient returns from online digital advertising, the reliance on page views to generate revenues has led to publishers creating more populist content, with public interest journalism becoming less and less prominent.

Audiences for news have fragmented, some access news through social media, others from radio and TV, some still buy newspapers and visit news websites, many will use a combination from the afore mentioned.

What is clear from our previous practical experience of running a news service and extensive research is that a public interest news website, that uses social media to direct audiences to said website, isn’t sustainable in todays crowded media market.

That’s why we at Talking Wales are taking a new approach.

We’re launching a truly multi-platform service ensuring that wherever people access their news we’ll be there providing it. A national news led radio station for Wales available online, via smart speakers or our dedicated smartphone App, a news website updated regularly, content shared across social media in relevant formats, not clickbait designed to lure you to a website, email newsletters along with online and in person events and discussions.

It’s not just our service that’s innovative our ownership model is as well. We’ve set up as a community benefit society, a cooperative model that means we’ll be answerable to you our shareholders, and as required by law every penny of profit we generate will be reinvested into the service, employing more journalists providing improved news provision to communities across Wales.

We will soon be conducting a pilot phase and publishing our share prospectus which will allow you to own a stake in Talking Wales, raising the funds required to launch the new service in 2024.

In the meantime if you would like to support our work you can make a donation via the link below.

Diolch

Huw Marshall
Founder
www.talking.wales

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What's the plan?

How are we going to achieve it?

The future of news in Wales

The nature of news consumption is changing, and in Wales how people interact with media is markedly different to the rest of the UK. News provision in Wales has been …

Schedule

Since September 2022 we have been working with Cwmpas Wales, formerly the Wales Co-operative centre in order to create the best cooperative structure for the company. There are a number …

Building a team

Launching Talking Wales is a big ask and simply can’t be achieved by one individual. By setting up a Community Benefit Society that governance is built in, that’s why we’re …

Radio for the digital age

The world of radio has changed. According to research carried out by RAJAR more and more of us are listening to audio content online, via our smartphones, digital assistants and …

Funding

We have prepared a detailed 5-year business plan. Ensuring that the funding is in place for the duration of that period will ensure the business will have the capacity to …

What’s on TV in Wales

TV has changed beyond all recognition in the past decade. For a generation raised on 3 or 4 TV channels the choice available today can be bewildering. So much content …

Our Mission and Values Statement

Talking Wales will be owned and managed, researched, written, designed, developed, promoted and distributed by people who share a common goal to strengthen civil society and help people participate more …

Who is developing the plan?

Project lead

Huw Marshall is the former head of digital at S4C. He has an in depth knowledge and understanding of the UK and Wales media landscapes and over the past three years has developed a comprehensive understanding of the news industry in Wales. He has a network of connections within the traditional media industry as well the emerging technologies sector.

He helped launch The National Wales on March 1st 2021 following over 2 years of development through New Media Wales with the financial support of individuals via Patreon.

Huw’s LinkedIn