14 April 2020
S4C will be given another opportunity to give their views and question the channel's Chief Executive, Owen Edwards and Amanda Rees, Content Director at a Facebook Live event on Thursday 23 April at 6.00.
The session is a follow-up to the success of the live event held on S4C's Facebook page nearly a month ago, following the decision to cancel a Viewers' Evening in Aberystwyth due to covid-19 concerns.
250 people joined the session on the evening, and it has had 11,000 unique views.
Many requests and suggestions were offered of programmes that viewers were keen to see on screen over the coming weeks, and S4C hopes to be able to respond to many of these requests. These included nature programmes for the whole family, archive footage of Welsh music videos, a wellness programme, for example home-based yoga, box-set ideas, and many requests for old classics from the archives, such as Hufen a Moch Bach, Ryan a Ronnie, and Emyn Roc a Rôl.
Another suggestion, received from a Carmarthen viewer was the idea of broadcasting a service every Sunday morning to reach out to the large number of society who miss attending chapel or church. And as S4C adapted its schedule in the midst of covid-19 developments, it was decided to broadcast Oedfa Dechrau Canmol service at 11.00 every Sunday morning from 29 March, with hymns selected from the Dechrau Canu Dechrau Canmol archive.
"S4C holds regular public Viewers' Evenings throughout the year in different parts of Wales, where members of the public are welcome to discuss S4C, our programmes and services with us." Says Owen Evans, S4C's Chief Executive.
"And although it isn't possible to hold these meetings at the moment, we're still really keen to hear from people. These Facebook Live sessions are a way to reach more people and potentially reach a different audience.
"We are very keen at this unsettling time, despite all the challenges everyone faces that we ensure we are there, with unique content and content that is going to serve the audience.
"Everyone is welcome to get in touch with us on Facebook Live to ask questions and to share what they would like to see on the channel in the future. People can also get in touch beforehand by sending questions to S4C's Viewer's Hotline service gwifren@s4c.cymru, 0370 600 4141 or through Facebook Messenger.
