£9m national broadcast archive to be set up in Wales

TV and radio recordings dating back to the 1930s will be available to the public at four hubs across Wales thanks to a £9m project.

The National Broadcast Archive for Wales moved closer with the confirmation of £5m National Lottery support. The rest of the money will come from the National Library of Wales and BBC Wales who will now develop plans to provide access to the archives at four “digital heritage” hubs at Aberystwyth, Wrexham, Carmarthen and Cardiff.

Around 1,000 programme clips will be available online for community use.

The archive has 160,000 recordings dating back to the 1930s chronicling the life of the nation encompassing the Second World War, Aberfan, the miners’ strike and the battles over devolution.

As well as informing the public with sport, music, drama and comedy, it includes contributions in Welsh and English from classic film Grand Slam, the series Fo a Fe and from singers Shirley Bassey and Meic Stevens as well as writers and poets Saunders Lewis and Gwyn Thomas.

National Library of Wales president Rhodri Glyn Thomas said: “We are delighted that the National Lottery has provided initial funding to develop this pioneering project and ensure that the BBC Wales archive will be accessible for public use.

“As the home of the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, and with material from ITV Wales already at the Library, we intend to safeguard this vital source of our nation’s heritage for present and future generations.

“We are very grateful for the National Lottery’s support to develop our plans and to BBC Cymru Wales for transferring the archive to the Library.”

The catalyst for the announcement is the BBC’s decision to move to a new building in Cardiff city centre.

As part of its move, BBC Wales is currently digitising around 160,000 radio and TV items which will be available for use by its production teams.

In addition, the BBC and the National Library have been working together on a project that will eventually see all of the original recordings, together with digitised copies, deposited at the National Library in Aberystwyth.

BBC director Rhodri Talfan Davies said: “BBC Wales’s archive is a central part of our nation’s identity and shared memory – reflecting the twists and turns of almost 90 years of life across communities the length and breadth of our country, in Welsh and English.

“This unprecedented partnership with the National Library of Wales and the National Lottery will make these extraordinary resources available to the entire Welsh public – a national broadcasting archive fit for the 21st century.”