Letter to BBC Director General regarding programmes made in Wales about Wales:
Dear Lord Hall,
We welcome the acknowledgement in your letter to the First Minister and others on May 12th that there is a growing need to see the full diversity of the UK’s cultures and communities better reflected on screen and on air.
We welcome too the commitment to improve the portrayal of Wales on network television, and note your admission that the funding for English language content made in Wales for a Welsh audience has dropped to “unsustainable levels”.
Further to your commitment to allocate additional funding to spend on improving the BBC’s dedicated services in the Nations it is essential to follow through this policy commitment with firm financial commitments straight away.
As the IWA detailed in their Wales Media Audit last autumn, high-level commitments on improvements in all these areas have been made previously by senior BBC Executives. Indeed, you first raised this issue yourself in Cardiff in April 2014. Over two years has passed since then. It’s no longer good enough to simply acknowledge the problem.
The time has come for you to be specific about how much extra you will invest in Wales.
Yours,
Lee Waters AM
Bethan Jenkins AM
Mike Hedges AM
Suzy Davies AM
Mark Isherwood AM
Angela Burns AM
Jenny Rathbone AM
Vikki Howells AM
Llyr Gruffydd AM
Simon Thomas AM
Hefin David AM
Rhun Ap Iorwerth AM
Jayne Bryant AM
Dawn Bowden AM
Jeremy Miles AM
Eluned Morgan AM
Dai Lloyd AM
David Rees AM
Hannah Blythyn AM
Mick Antoniw AM
Janet Finch – Saunders AM
Joyce Watson AM
Lynne Neagle AM
John Griffiths AM
Ann Jones AM
Nicholas Ramsay AM
Mohammad Asghar AM
Rhianon Passmore AM
Huw Irranca-Davies AM
Neil McEvoy AM
Adam Price AM
Steffan Lewis AM
David Melding AM
Russell George AM
Leanne Wood AM
Paul Davies AM
Nathan Gill AM
Daran Millar AM
Julie Morgan AM
Caroline Jones AM
Neil Hamilton AM