Wales West and North Television - History

History

The geography of Wales presented a daunting problem to the ITA. The populous area of Wales in the South were already being served by TWW, which had begun broadcasting in 1958, while the north-east of the country and much of the north coast was served by the North of England franchise, Granada and ABC, operating since 1956; the interior of north Wales could not receive ITV transmissions at all.

The ITA was pressured, by a consortium of Welsh-speaking businessmen, into setting up a new North and West Wales region; the ITA asked the Postmaster General to allow this, which he did, with strict provisos: the new service must not offer viewers in Wales a choice other viewers did not have, and at the last minute, the Postmaster General insisted that the new station should, on its own, produce ten-hours-a-week of programmes in Welsh, without relying on Welsh language programmes produced by Granada and TWW.

These punitive regulations were accepted, and the contract was awarded in 1961 to Wales Television Limited, which was later changed to Wales (West and North) Television Limited, following objections from TWW who felt that the original name was intruding on their area, though WWN dropped the parenthesis at every possible opportunity. WWN was to use three VHF transmitters, at Preseli (covering the south west), Arfon (north west) and Moel-y-Parc in the north east. When the Preseli transmitter came online on 14 September 1962, so did WWN. However, the delay in introducing the transmitters at Arfon and Moel-y-Parc, until later in 1963, destroyed the morale and the finances of WWN. Free programming from the ITV network, plus other support from its neighbours ABC, ATV and TWW just about kept the ship afloat, but Granada decided to dispense with its productions in the Welsh language, and the loss of this valuable programming stream proved fatal to WWN.

TWW offered a generous package to WWN's shareholders, in order to gain control of the territory, and kept the Teledu Cymru name on the air for four years after the demise of its parent company on 26 January 1964.