BBC Trust

Amongst the group most participants were not significant radio listeners. Three of those present listened to Heart FM or Real Radio as ‘background noise’ to wake up to, or listened to Radio 2 later during the morning. Others listened to the same stations while travelling by car to hear hourly news and travel updates though others said “I listen to my own music in the car – I can’t be bothered with fiddling around to find radio stations, and there are no soaps on the radio”.

Radio Wales was a choice amongst some listeners at the weekend with Saturday’s Owen Money programme being a popular time to listen.

A number said that they looked after young grandchildren during the working week, and that since they were more likely to watch television, this meant that the radio wasn’t put on.

There was widespread appreciation of the absence of adverts on the BBC’s TV stations. Some participants were avid watchers of day-time BBC programmes, with Flog it, Bargain Hunt and Escape to the Country all mentioned.

Popular programmes at other times of the day mentioned included The One Show, Songs of Praise, Pointless, Holby City, Casualty,  Countryfile and Mrs Brown’s Boys.

Some participants felt that television was too ‘sports heavy’ at weekends, with too much time allotted to football and Formula One motor racing. Others however said how much they appreciated the BBC’s sports coverage, and greatly enjoyed its darts, snooker, and particularly its rugby coverage.

A significant proportion of those present enjoyed watching continuing drama on TV, and a number said that they particularly liked the BBC produced Pobol y Cwm on S4C. There was also appreciation of the recent special episode of High Hopes, and a number expressed the hope that the series would make a return. The BBC Wales drama, Belonging, was also remembered fondly, and regret expressed that there was so little drama for Wales now produced by BBC Wales.

Some participants were critical of the portrayal of the valleys in Channels 4’s TV series, Skint, with one participant speaking for a number when she said “I can’t believe that people live like that in the valleys – it was laid on a bit thick and wasn’t representative of the valleys”.

While there was no preferred news provider amongst the participants, a number said that they regularly watched the BBC’s Breakfast News on TV and praised both the presenters, and the content of the programme. Some of those present said that they had previously considered the local newspaper, The Aberdare Leader, to be their main source of local news, but that the closure of the local office meant that this was no longer true to the same extent due to it containing less news about their community. The fact that there was no source of local news was a concern to several of those attending.

Both BBC Wales Today and Newyddion TV news programmes were praised with one participant speaking for many when she said that they “cover the valleys well, as does The Wales Report”. 

One participant said that she really hoped that the proposals to introduce a BBC One + 1 service would be progressed as quickly as possible since she really appreciated having this option in the output of other broadcasters.