Britannist

Broadcasting - News - MSP calls for Scottish digital channel - Digital Spy

Westcountryman

Let them have it - but find a commercial provider. I don't see why taxpayers' should have to foot the bill.

I really, really dislike S4C. I think it's rubbish. To get real channel 4 you need a freeview box.

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Manus haec inimica tyrannis ense petit placidam sub libertate quietam - "This hand of mine, which is hostile to tyrants, seeks by the sword quiet peace under liberty."

Britannist

I remember that when Channel Four Television started broadcasting across the UK many viewers in mostly English-speaking south Wales (i.e. the area including the largest towns and cities of Wales) protested because transmitters in Wales did not carry the English-language version of Channel received in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Europhile Whitelaw ('Conservative' Home Secretary at the time) refused to allow the English-speaking version of Channel Four Television to be carried by television transmitters in mostly English-Speaking parts of Wales (an area covering about 95% of Wales) despite complaints from Welsh people who wanted to see Channel Four in English. As a result of Whitelaw ignoring the wishes of at least 90% of the people of Wales many viewers in south Wales and north Wales had second television aerials put up pointing in the direction of television transmitters in the Bristol and Liverpool areas respectively in order to receive the English-language Channel Four Television service.

Westcountryman

I don't blame them. Not only is S4C in Welsh most of the time, but a lot of the programming is different too.

Around 20% of people in Wales speak Welsh, which means the majority (80%) of those who don't have digital are missing out. In Cardiff I believe the number of Welsh speakers is around 10%.

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Manus haec inimica tyrannis ense petit placidam sub libertate quietam - "This hand of mine, which is hostile to tyrants, seeks by the sword quiet peace under liberty."

Britannist

I like the Welsh language but I do not like the way it is being used by some so-called 'Nationalists' (i.e. people who want Wales out of the UK and controlled by the EU) to promote their own unpleasant and divisive aims (which are to break the ancient union of Wales and England).

cassie

I don't mind the five million Scots having their own TV channel provided its broadcasting is confined to Scotland and provided also that the the fifty million people of England also have an England TV channel!

In reality, it will prove to be another Scotland only facility which will be used to pump further propaganda into England!

22ANDUK

Protecting our culture is as important as freedom from the EU. So it is important that languages such as Scots Gaelic, Welsh, even Cornish, should have a role equal to their measure in society.

With the most widely spoken, Welsh, it is entirely justifiable that they can have a Welsh language channel funded by the tax-payer - but the Welsh tax-payer. This of course, should apply for the Scots too. If they wanted a Scottish TV channel funded by the tax-payer then let it be, and only be, the Scottish tax-payer. Of course, it wouldn't hurt for it to be a private enterprise - as to conduct it in Scots Gaelic would probably leave quite a high standard of programming (unless they dubbed over 'X Factor'!).

On the subject of programming anomalies - I stayed with a mate in Keele (near Stoke) a while back and for some transmission reason for that area, could only access S4C, and not Channel 4. So an English town, quite comfortably in England, was forced to have Welsh language TV! A similar situation existed (or still exists) in the Borders programming, which is designed to serve both viewers from Northern England and Southern Scotland. About 9/10 presenters and reporters were Scottish, and news was grossly in favour of issues north of the border.

And yet, this exists within British news too. Whenever an issue arises in Scotland or Welsh the BBC has a 'official principle' where the presenter HAS to be of that nationality unless completely impossible - it has never bothered me if an English reporter covered a piece in Bangor or a Scottish reporter covered a piece in Kent.

Westcountryman

They're all impractical languages, hence they're not in wide usage. Had it not been for government intervention, Welsh would be about as widely spoken as Cornish by now. The day bilingual signs make it to Cornwall is the day I ship out.

Nope. "S4C is financed from its advertising revenue and a fixed annual grant from the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)."

Source: S4C - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Manus haec inimica tyrannis ense petit placidam sub libertate quietam - "This hand of mine, which is hostile to tyrants, seeks by the sword quiet peace under liberty."

cassie

I have no objection to anyone learning minority languages other than English provided they pay for that themselves.

However, I do object to the funding initiatives by Blair and his compatriots taken in the British Parliament and largely funded by English tax payers. It is not generally known that Blair signed up to the 'European' Convention for the preservation & promotion of minority languages in 2000 whereby lingos which were largely defunct have been resuscitated. It's all of a piece with the policy of diluting England and the English. Moreover, it is divisive!

Not content with presiding over millions of immigrants (eg muslims) who are able to communicate amongst themselves in languages largely uncomprehended by the indigenous population, they have been actively increasing this feature in Scotland and Wales etc. Indeed, many of those in the former Monmouthshire who regard themselves as English and thought they were still in England, did not become aware of the true situation until 1998 some twenty four years after the LGA 1972 had come into effect! Why? Because street and other signs there in English started to be replaced with bi-lingual signs.

This 'minority language' situation ~ overwhelming affecting England, rather than the other minor nations ~ is now overlaid with the huge influx of Poles and other east europeans and their gobbledy gooks.

The irony in all this is that German is a minority language in the border areas of Germany [the largest single EU member state] with Poland, France, the Czech Rep etc and can now be promoted under EU rules using government funding!

The one nation and language which loses out (as per usual) is England and English. No doubt when German becomes more widespread there will be a vote on the adoption of a single official language ~ which ought to have been adopted decades ago ~ and German will be the one!

22ANDUK

Eurosceptic Atlanticist: "The day bilingual signs make it to Cornwall is the day I ship out."





Be seeing you then Eurosceptic...