200 Welsh TV shows get ZERO viewers!

[max_tranmere]

I read this story today. On the Welsh TV channel, which is called S4C, 196 of the channel's 890 shows get less than 1,000 viewers each. That is officially zero in TV terms! The channel gets ?100m annually from a central Government grant, and I think considering these figures the Government could be spending their money better. What do other people think?

[Robches]

I think the whole Welsh language thing is a scam. A few thousand people living in isolated communities might have Welsh as their first language, but they can speak English too. In the towns and cities everyone speaks English, yet all the road signs, and all the official documents have to be in both languages. It is just a way for unemployable public sector ponces to be kept in meaningless jobs.

[Arginald Valleywater]

Add in the costs of getting EVERY single council and government document translated and I reckon it will hit ?500m. Oddly enough I stayed at Celtic Manor, near Newport and once inside the hotel never saw a single sign in Welsh. Must only apply to public buildings, not hotels.

[max_tranmere]

I was in north Wales not so long ago and, as has been said, all road signs and road markings are in Welsh and English. I didnt hear many people speaking Welsh though, even in rural places that we visited all the locals I overheard were chatting in English when talking to each other. Obviously some will speak in Welsh but I didn't hear any.

[Dick Moby]

I was in Milford Haven several times in the 70's. It was a common occurrence to walk into a pub and hear them speaking English but whenever I ordered a drink and they heard my accent they started to speak Welsh. Mind you I did have some success at the "grab a granny night" in the merchant navy club. This led me to wonder if there was maybe some truth in the rumours of Welshmen in welly boots and their preferences, as some of the ladies weren't getting the attention they deserved from the locals.

[RoddersUK]

I served in Tonfanau near Towyn in 1969 and everyone spoke English in the pubs. Towyn being a resort then the tourists were English.
In the pubs that the locals used they also spoke English until an Anglo walked in then they would all speak Welsh.
Mind you, once they got used to us squaddies they only spoke in English when we came in as they took to us, and I must say that the vast majority of the Welsh I met were good to us and when the Regiment moved to Germany there were lots of tears from the Blodwyns and not a few lumps in the thoats from a lot of us squaddies.
But, as for the indecent waste of so much money on that unwatched Welsh speaking channel it beggars belief and really the station should be shut down.

[max_tranmere]

I wonder if there is a drive to get more people to speak Welsh in Wales, like there is in Northern Ireland (by the Nationalist politicians anyway) to get Irish spoken more. If so then this TV channel might get more viewers as time progresses, but they are getting no viewers at present!

[one eyed jack]

Sounds a bit like porn.

There are far too many channels and tv shows competing for peoples attention that we have hit the age of mediocrity where even good stuff is becoming boring because we are now so spoilt for choice.

This is otherwise known as market saturation.

I aint shifting too far from Sky with all my favourite shows on there but I hear the BBC are bringing in some quality drama this year over the reality tv stuff so they might get my viewership back in their stats

[gegsy32]

I speak welsh. First language. To say no one speaks welsh is frankly bollocks. Mid, North and West Wales have strong pockets of welsh speakers. Caerdydd & Abertawe have also increasing numbers of welsh speakers. In a competative tv world some programmes suffer but there are plenty of welsh programmes that get strong audiences.