First national broadcast archive in the UK opens in Wales

Today is a historic day in Wales as half a million clips from the history of Welsh television and radio are made available to the public as part of the Wales Broadcast Archive.

Housed at The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth – with 12 ‘Clip Corners’ opening across Wales – it will be the first national broadcast archive in the United Kingdom, and one of the most usable broadcast archives in Europe, transforming public access to a century of Welsh broadcast history with film, video and audio in both Welsh and English digitised for discovery.

The Wales Broadcast Archive Centre offers an interactive exhibition and digital access to material that has been preserved in various formats throughout the decades.

Visitors can search sound recordings of BBC radio in Wales from the 1930s onwards, television broadcasts by the BBC and commercial broadcasters in Wales including HTV Wales and ITV Cymru Wales from the 1950s onwards and from 1982 – all the programmes of S4C, the first Welsh language TV channel.

Hugely significant moments in Welsh history have been recorded for future generations through general news and documentary items covering events such as the drowning of Tryweryn, the Aberfan disaster, the Miners’ strikes and the opening of the Senedd. Also included are clips that cover all aspects of Welsh life, from extensive coverage of Welsh sport since the 1940s to entertainment and drama including the BBC’s longest running Welsh soap opera – Pobol y Cwm – which first aired in 1974. Nation Cymru