Looking towards the future

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the BBC’s first radio broadcast. The world has moved on dramatically since 1922. Technology has changed the way we see the world. Opening new horizons, allowing us to understand the world we live in better.

Radio has remained relatively unchanged, perhaps it’s its simplicity, that allows an individual with a microphone and access to a broadcast network to speak to the world, which has been its greatest strength.

Advances in technology, particularly the internet, mean that today anyone with a mic and a laptop or PC can start broadcasting.

In Wales, we are, perhaps, underserved when it comes to radio provision. We can access the BBC’s UK-wide output and their Welsh and English services that operate from Wales. Commercial radio has a presence across Wales providing, in the main, music-based provision and there are some local radio stations that offer a variety of output that serves the communities in which they are based.

What Wales lacks are spaces where Welsh news and current affairs are aired and discussed. Conversations around policy and its implementation often feed the day’s news agenda. In Wales, the scant spaces that discuss Welsh issues tend to be reactionary, feeding off news from newspapers that mainly report news from a UK perspective and certain political leaning.

The same can be said about online news sites. How many times have you read an article based on an interview or an article from another newspaper or news site?

An opportunity exists in Wales to break the mould and reinvent how news is reported.

Journalists are no longer restricted to writing and sharing their work in print or online, today their voices can be heard, and their faces can be seen, those interviews can be broadcast live or shortly after they have taken place. The news generated can then be shared in myriad ways, reaching different, potentially new audiences.

During the past 10 weeks, I have had an opportunity to evaluate and develop a new business model for news provision here in Wales, a model that could potentially be replicated elsewhere.

That’s why Talking Wales is taking an audio-first approach. Creating a service and output that doesn’t currently exist here. A truly multi-platform service that understands audiences’ needs and habits.

A service that ensures Welsh citizens are kept informed regarding the issues that matter within their communities and on a national and international level.

We have the technology and the expertise; all we need is your support.

Diolch

Huw Marshall

Founder Talking Wales

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