Radio Ga Ga In Ceredigion

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Now let me make full disclosure here. I have never listened to Radio Ceredigion being a local radio station (and when I mean local I mean I don't and never have lived  there). All I have listened to with regard to Nation Radio is those halcyon days when pressing the button on the DAB radio (now dead - Alexa  - other such machines are available - have really killed it off) before moving on to the channel I wanted. The same company owes both stations.

But Radio Ceredigion broadcast some Welsh language programming which was important as it provided the Welsh speaker with choice. And when I say choice I'm talking about only it appears on Sunday evenings. Well choice no more as the regulator OFCOM agreed to changes in the licence allowing Nation Radio to take over the frequency despite acknowledging that that there was barely little evidence it would benefit listeners.

Nation Radio argued that the area could not sustain two commercial radio stations. Well in all honesty I don't know. What I do know is this. Nation radio is the sort of radio station you feel you've heard across the disunited kingdom. The sort of station which taken as a whole appears to have made from a tenplate. Radio Ceredigion broadcasting in the Welsh language, even if only on a Sunday evening, made it different.

I'm not going to the defend it's English language output. Purely on the grounds that I don't know what it's like and how "local" it is. So it's up to others living in the area to battle for that. But I feel there is a need to put pressure on Nation Radio's bosses to opt-out of the main channel for Welsh language programming in an area let's not forget where a high proportion speaks the indigenous tongue.

It is after all broadcast on Sunday evenings. I suspect the ratings are not high. But then again I suspect the ratings are not high for Nation Radio either. Why? Because it's a Sunday evening. Most people would be watching stuff like Strictly Come Dancing or Call The Midwife. So this "it's not commercial" argument does not wash.

Also whether through accident or design this decision is anti-Welsh. After all in London being a multicultural city there are many radio stations broadcasting in languages other than English (such as Greek). And yet a region where there is a high proportion of Welsh speakers loses a chance to hear it on a Sunday evening? How can this be remotely be considered fair?

As I've discussed before media issues are not a devolved issue. If this decision was considered by a body based in Wales I'm sure it would have been rejected. At the very least there would have been an insistence on Welsh language programming. But no. London has allowed a Welsh speaking area to lose a Welsh speaking outlet and it doesn't really care.

So really the only logical response is whether you're listening in English or Welsh to boycott Nation Radio until it allows Welsh language programming to continue in Ceredigion. Ultimately a commercial company will only be influenced by commercial pressures.

Until the next time.