S4C – The first 25 years <br />

Dydd Gwener 2 Tachwedd 2007
S4C – The first 25 years
S4C Chief Executives past and present will gather in Aberystwyth on 2 November to attend a major conference marking the 25th anniversary of the Welsh-language television channel.

The conference is being organised by the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies at Aberystwyth University in association with the National Library of Wales, and will bring together key figures from industry as well as academics.

Iona Jones, who was appointed Chief Executive of S4C in 2005, will address delegates on the challenges facing the channel in the digital age. Her predecessors Huw Jones (Chief Executive 1994-2005) and Geraint Stanley Jones (Chief Executive 1986-1994) will reflect on significant developments during their tenures.

S4C's first Director of Programmes Euryn Ogwen Williams will also talk about the Channel's early days and the key decisions taken in the months leading up to the first broadcast on 1 November 1982.
“We are very privileged to have been able to bring together key figures who have led the development of S4C over the past 25 years,” said Prof. Elan Closs Stephens from Aberystwyth’s Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, who chaired the S4C Authority from 1998-2006.

“This will be a landmark conference, chronicling the first 25 years in the channel’s history. We will also be exploring the international dimension and focussing on specific themes such as the development of the independent television sector, linguistic policy and digital opportunities.”

Other speakers include BBC Wales Head of Welsh Programmes Keith Jones; S4C Commissioning Director Rhian Gibson, and Rhys Evans, the biographer of the late Gwynfor Evans whose threat to go on hunger strike in 1980 led to the foundation of S4C two years later.

The two-day conference will be held 2-3 November in the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, which houses a huge catalogue of S4C’s output in its Screen and Sound Archive.