Whether you agree or disagree with his and his party’s politics Adam Price claimed yesterday that one of the reasons behind Plaid Cymru’s inability to cut through and gain more support for the party was the current state of the media landscape in Wales.
As you can see from his words, he wasn’t blaming the media, as the rather misleading headline stated, he was commenting on the state of Welsh media, or more to the point, the lack of it.
Wales has suffered from a historic lack of national news provision from a Welsh perspective. Unlike Scotland which has a number of Scottish, national, titles. They also have Scottish editions of the UK national papers.
Here in Wales the UK national titles haven’t seen the need to publish Welsh editions, with Welsh audiences seemingly happy to consume news that doesn’t always take into account the devolution of certain policy areas such as health and education.
Since 2018 when he took over the leadership of his party newspaper sales have continued to decline at both a national and local level. The Daily Mail remains the most popular newspaper in Wales, although by today only 1 in 4 people in Wales read a newspaper.
TV via the BBC and ITV are Wales’s most popular news sources, but here news from Wales is an adjunct to the national news of the UK, offering a regional perspective after the main event.
But there isn’t a lack of interest in Wales in wanting to know what’s happening here, according to Ofcom’s most recent research Wales is second only to Scotland when it comes to the level of interest in news about Wales, with nearly half the population (46%) being “very interested” and when combined with those who are “quite interested” we are talking about 83% of the population.
So how can we serve this potentially huge audience?
A news website with links to those online stories shared via Twitter and Facebook simply won’t cut the mustard today. Audiences are more selective and have much higher expectations today. A Welsh news service needs to provide quality reporting shared across a number of platforms in formats audiences can consume easily.
That’s why we’re developing a new kind of news service for Wales, one that operates across multiple platforms, giving each one the respect they deserve. We also want to build a company and service that the people of Wales can become a part of its success, that’s why we’re being set up as a cooperative, the staff and our audience can all own a stake in what we’re building for the long term.
You can learn in detail about our plans by clicking here.
We hope you can join us on our journey.
Huw Marshall
Founder Talking Wales
You can help us as we incorporate as a Community Benefit Society and prepare for our initial share issue by making a donation below. Diolch/Thanks.