It began with a crackly radio transmission of a folk song picked up by a few people in Cardiff and the south Wales valleys but a century on has developed into a multichannel, bilingual institution and industry producing blockbuster TV shows featuring Daleks, dæmons and detectives.
The story of the BBC in Wales, which has involved its fair share of protest and controversy over what should be broadcast – and in what language – is being told through an exhibition at National Museum Cardiff in the Welsh capital.
BBC 100 in Wales details the history of the corporation from the days when getting radio and TV signals across mountains was a technological challenge, to the modern era when shows such as Doctor Who, His Dark Materials and Benedict Cumberbatch’s take on Sherlock Holmes are made in Cardiff and have a global reach.
David Anderson, the director general of Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales, said the BBC had played a vital role in the development of modern Wales. “Over the last century, the BBC and other public service broadcasting has been a foundation of our democracy and of our understanding and engagement with the world,” he said.
The BBC’s story in Wales began on 13 February 1923 when the opera singer Mostyn Thomas sang the folk song Dafydd y Garreg Wen from a studio on Castle Street in Cardiff. Programmes were transmitted with an aerial only powerful enough to reach listeners in the capital and parts of the south Wales valleys.
Television arrived in Wales 30 years later via the Wenvoe transmitter in the Vale of Glamorgan, which also served people in south-west England. The first Welsh-language programme was aired the following year but there were protests by non-Welsh speakers on both sides of the border.
A copy of the 1962 watershed BBC radio lecture Tynged yr Iaith – the Fate of the Language – by the writer and political activist Saunders Lewis is featured prominently in the exhibition.
He called for the Welsh people to take revolutionary action ensure their language survived and his lecture is seen by many as a catalyst for the formation of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society), whose members took direct action to campaign for Welsh-language radio and TV stations.
A cuddly toy – Wales’s own SuperTed – is a highlight of the exhibition. One of the bear’s animated adventures was the first programme broadcast on the Welsh-language channel S4C. There is also a pub sign from the Welsh language soap Pobol y Cwm (People of the Valley), which has been on air for almost half a century.
As well as telling a serious story, the exhibition also has its fair share of opportunities for nostalgia, including appearances by favourite children’s show characters such as Bagpuss and Teletubbies. And, naturally, there is a Dalek and a Tardis – Doctor Who has been made in south Wales since it was revived in 2005.
There are also recreations of a 1970s living room with episodes of the Two Ronnies and Morecambe and Wise showing on the TV, a vintage BBC news studio and a television shop window recalling the era when people without their own set would watch from the pavement.
Anderson said: “We hope that visitors to the exhibition will be inspired by the story of the BBC and where that story may go in the future, but we also hope it provides them with comfort and an opportunity to reflect on their own histories after the lonely years many of us experienced lately.”
The free exhibition runs until 16 April 2023. For details, visit museum.wales/cardiff/whatson/11771/BBC-100-in-Wales
