Regional coverage of Wales under attack

Earlier in the week,I commented that the Scots were not happy about regional coverage on the BBC.

Now it is the turn of the Welsh nation.

The Wales Broadcasting Committee report heard that

the BBC's news and current affairs coverage did not reflect the transformation that has taken place in Welsh politics and national life and that Wales has been largely ignored by the BBC national news since the onset of devolution.

Furthermore

broadcasters fail to reflect Welsh lives and issues in their programming across the UK.

But the committee found that it is not just the BBC.Michael Grade has come in for particular critisism

ITV has slowly reduced the amount of non-news programming it produces. Grade admitted to the Broadcasting Committee that ITV had been failing to reflect Wales at a network level, but allocated the responsibility to the "creative community" in Wales.

Furthermore

The Institute of Welsh Affairs has produced a report which outlines some of the options for Wales, including the idea of establishing a new Welsh commercial channel which acts as a network affiliate for ITV. BECTU favour continuing strong roles as indigenous PSB production centres for BBC Wales, ITV Wales and S4C. It also supports an expansion of the proportion of Welsh originated programming on network BBC/ITV schedules. The NUJ has argued that Ofcom should fulfill its statutory duty in terms of ITV by ensuring that ITV continues with, and expands upon, its local and regional news and non-news commitments including Children's TV production.