Welsh Journals

When I was invited to give my personal views on television in Wales, my first reaction was 'Oh no, not another speech about a Welsh Television Service.' And then I realised there was a diff- erence between the two subjects. From this very brief preamble you will have gathered that I am not going to try and interest you in the possibility of using what is left of the much maligned Band III to provide a Welsh Television Service or about the now far more feasible task of beaming Welsh programmes to the Moon, and having them bounced back to us by the Old Man in person. No, I would like us to think of television in Wales, the sort of television we would like. If we can imagine the ideal, and if it's attractive enough, it will inspire the people, and when they want anything they usually get it. Vox populi, vox Dei, they used to say in the Middle Ages, which translated into modern idiom means 'what the people think today, the politicians clamour for tomorrow'. Let us begin with an analysis of television in Wales as it is today and note some of its underlying defects. The first point I wish to make concerns the power of television. We have a horror of powerful media in Wales. We never have liked anything or anyone too strong in our midst-perhaps we like to be divided, I don't know. Television will only remain powerful while it is good. I can think of nothing more boring than T v when it is bad. I have a feeling-it's only a feeling and I give it to you for what it's worth-that because of our horror at the power of television, some of us secretly wish that it was bad and rather dull like so many of our cultural activities. We must abhor WYN ROBERTS A TELEVISION SERVICE is a means to an end not an end in itself; it's the machinery for providing television in Wales. And I am beginning to wonder whether in fact we have not been talking too much about the means and not enough about the end. Surely if the end is desirable enough we do not have to worry about the means-the means will reveal itself automatically.