Huw Jones: 'Continue fight for S4C independence'

Huw Jones has chaired the S4C board for eight years

The chairman of S4C has described the "fight" with the UK government to secure the channel's independence.

Huw Jones will leave S4C at the end of September, after eight years chairing the board.

He called on his successor to continue to battle for the broadcaster.

He took office at a turbulent time for S4C in 2011, and said he had to immediately fight to protect its identity.

It followed government cuts to its budget and a plan to force a closer relationship with the BBC.

Mr Jones, who had previously been chief executive of the channel from 1994 to 2005, said he took the job because "it felt like S4C was going through a period of fundamental challenges, and maybe I had the experience to contribute some of the answers".

An operating agreement was entered into between the BBC Trust and S4C in 2013

Mr Jones said he felt the "need to fight" at the time, in the face of large funding cuts and a partnership with the BBC Trust, "to protect independence and to create some sort of financial stability as well".

The UK government continues to directly contribute part of the channel's annual budget, while S4C has maintained a small commercial income.

This meant the channel managed to retain its editorial and operational independence, despite concerns during the process its identity might disappear.

"S4C's independence is important because, for one thing, it was the new thing that was created in '82.

"There were good programmes done before then, but a service was created and it was promised that there would be a unique body carrying that responsibility. This body only needed to worry about S4C, about the Welsh language service.

"To lose that, and to lose the opportunity to act solely for the benefit of the Welsh language, would have been a great loss.

"In addition, any idea of losing responsibility, or transferring responsibility for deciding how much money S4C gets, from central government to the BBC has been a big step back in my opinion. "

Independence

S4C has now gone through an independent review, and has relocated staff from its headquarters in Cardiff to the Yr Egin building in Carmarthen.

Since the appointment of Huw Jones, and with Ian Jones and now Owen Evans as chief executives at the channel, the service has reshaped itself to be a content provider on a variety of platforms.

And the nature of S4C now is different to what the UK government predicted in 2010, according to Mr Jones.

"There was still talk of editorial independence, but no mention of continued operational independence. And so those two things have been secured.

"But over the eight years we have also been able to build an effective partnership with the BBC which is a partnership of two organisations that recognise each other's independence while one is huge and the other much smaller. But it works."

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Interviews for Mr Jones' successor as chair are currently taking place.

"S4C will never be able to rest on its laurels," he said.

"There will always be periods where a debate asks: 'why is this service still important?' That will happen every time a financial settlement comes up.

"But I'm also confident. If you go back to the beginning of S4C, almost 40 years ago, and S4C was established in the face of what appeared to be a serious decline in the state of the language.

"Now, while there are big challenges, there is a lot of hope and the language is much more central to Welsh life in general than it has ever been. "