20 October 2011

Television production company Tinopolis has won in an open competition the tender to produce an afternoon service, an evening magazine programme and a Sunday night programme for S4C, conditional upon a contract.

The new service will begin in March 2012.

Geraint Rowlands, the Channel’s Director of Commissioning, said S4C looked forward to cooperating with Tinopolis on a service that is core to S4C’s Vision 2012. He added that the tender process had been extremely competitive and had created an opportunity to make financial savings in addition to securing a service and programmes of the highest possible quality for S4C viewers.

The announcement regarding this tender, worth a maximum £5.1m a year, comes at the end of a busy period for the commissioning team and the production companies.

Almost a thousand ideas and applications were received as part of another process – the first of S4C’s Commissioning Windows for the 2012 schedule. Twenty five different companies are being commissioned in this first Window. They cover a wide range of programmes which will offer an exciting schedule of the highest standard.

According to Geraint Rowlands, “The commissioning process has been a challenge to the production companies and to S4C in the face of cuts in the Channel’s budget for 2012. It’s obvious that some companies and individuals will be disappointed in the face of the recent announcements. But it must be emphasised that there will be other opportunities to bid for commissions and the next opportunity will come at the end of October when the second Commissioning Window opens.

The Channel is also in the middle of a second open tendering process for programmes and other services for the 2012 schedule.

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