5 Comments

  1. Alwyn Roberts
    January 28, 2013 @ 4:27 pm

    I enjoyed reading your piece but you must understand that Radio Cymru serves as many different stations with many different audiences at different times of the day. You can compare Daf a Caryl to a Radio 2 type breakfast show, Taro’r post is similar to a Radio 5 type talk show and C2 is radio 1 esque.

    I think Radio Cymru as it was suited the listeners fine, you’d have the older audiences listening to John ac Alun on a sunday night, The mother in her 30’s listening to Daf and Caryl and the teens listening to C2 in the evening.

    There is no unfairness in the fact that bands like Yr Ods don’t get as much airtime as MOR artists during the day, would you expect Wil Tan or Iona ac Andy to get upset if C2 weren’t playing their songs? The great thing about Radio Cymru is that there was a place and time for everything and I think that filling the hours with bands that already get a platform on C2 would upset and alienate the loyal listeners of many years who enjoy Bryn Fon, Mojo, John ac Alun etc.

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  2. john gedru
    June 11, 2013 @ 7:03 pm

    C2 was a great idea but has been watered down to the point that it bears no resemblance to what it was set up to be: a platform for new music from Wales, with plenty of room for “alternative” music with shows by DJs with a real interest in the music they were olaying – like Nia Medi & Geraint Jarman for instance.
    It’s embarassing when friends from abroad visit & I have to explain, that “Yes this is our national radio station…” as another dodgy guitar solo rings out.
    People may think they want John ac Alun or whoever – simply because that’s all they’ve heard on the airwaves. Without a vibrant platform to showcase new/experimental/different Welsh music, what hope is there for the future of [pop] culture in Wales, the land of song[!?]

    Hoffi’r erthygl Rhys, spot on unwaith eto!

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  3. john gedru
    June 11, 2013 @ 7:08 pm

    Nia & Geraint also played old gems, but these were carefully chosen as tracks that had rarely if ever been aired on R.Cymru. Will we return to a state of affairs when some Welsh music will stand a better chance of being played on English channels – like in the 8os? Plus ca change…

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  4. alan holmes
    June 11, 2013 @ 10:14 pm

    You’re far more likely to hear interesting Welsh language music on Adam Walton’s weekly 3 hour show on Radio Wales – ostensibly an English language network – than on a whole week of Radio Cymru these days.
    I still have tapes I listen to of Nia Melville’s Sunday night programmes on Radio Cymru back in the 80s/early 90s… hard to believe that actually happened now!

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  5. Joe McDonnell.
    June 12, 2013 @ 12:13 am

    Surely as the most subsidised, and least watched TV channel in Europe S4C is already effectively ‘underground’. The simple fact is that the market for a Welsh language act in Wales dictates the price it can command, as a Socialist that values art it grieves me, but when we’re effectively fighting to keep hospitals and local sports facilities open and away from the clutches of this coalition of the greedy something has to give. Being realistic, without John Peel nobody on English radio is interested in Welsh language acts really, and let’s face it, the market in Wales is pretty limited, I hardly noticed Taksim Square in Cardiff set alight at people distraught at the situation at Radio Cymru. When Meinir Gwylim or (god forbid) Bryn ‘the ego’ Fon can sell out the Millenium stadium I’ll believe that there’s a reason to support this cause, until then be glad that there’s even an underground, albeit at great expense to the taxpayers of the whole UK.

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