30 July 2015

S4C have announced good news for fans of the drama series Pobol y Cwm as the channel intends to broadcast a new episode every Wednesday night by the end of the year. Pobol y Cwm is currently shown on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday night.

The producers of the BBC Wales drama have offered to produce a fifth weekly episode, and S4C have confirmed the commission and agreed to fund the episode, with the exact timing of the schedule change to be confirmed.

The daily drama had been reduced to four weekly episodes at the beginning of the year, after S4C brought the funding for the Omnibus to an end. As the funding for the Omnibus was cut back, the production team could not continue to provide the five original weekly episodes.

The announcement about the return of the fifth episode comes at an exciting time for the series as Garry Monk's storyline reaches a climax this week.

According to S4C Director of Content and Transmission, Dafydd Rhys, the return to five episodes is great news for Pobol y Cwm fans, and he will be very pleased to see the series make its return as the cornerstone of the channel's Monday to Friday schedule.

S4C Director of Content and Transmission, Dafydd Rhys says:

"To see five weekly episodes of Pobol y Cwm back on S4C is great news for the channel's viewers.

"Naturally, we were disappointed to have to lose a mid-week episode when we brought the Omnibus to an end last year, but we are thrilled that it is now possible to return to the full five weekly episodes.

"This will offer good value for money for S4C and it means we can now offer a daily soap on the channel once again."

BBC Wales Head of Welsh Language Programmes and Services, Sian Gwynedd, said:

"This is great news for the production but mainly for the viewers. There has been a lot of hard work done to strengthen the series and this work will continue as we prepare for the fifth episode. We saw during the birthday celebrations last year how much the series means to viewers all over Wales. The next step is to discuss with the talent unions."

Pobol y Cwm is co-funded by S4C and BBC Wales and is shown at 8.00 on Monday, Thursday, Thursday and Friday night. The repeat with on-screen subtitles is shown the following evening (with Friday's episode shown again on Monday night) at 6.00, and each episode is available again on S4C's online service, s4c.cymru, and on BBC iPlayer.

Ends