S4C chief executive Owen Evans says he is leaving the broadcaster on a high, with its audiences up on all platforms.
Earlier this month we revealed that he is due to take over as head of Estyn, the independent school inspection body for Wales.
The broadcaster’s annual report shows that the average peak time viewing figures in Wales went from 17,500 to 18,500 (up 6%).
S4C’s weekly reach increased from 306k to 321k (up 5%) and the weekly reach outside Wales from 396k to 502k (up 27%).
S4C viewing hours throughout the 海角视频 have risen to their highest level in seven years.
With a digital strategy in place, the number of S4C Clic’s viewing hours has increased by 45% and 25% on BBC iPlayer.
Also, S4C Clic has succeeded in attracting 200,000 subscribers.
On social media, an area in which the channel has invested over recent years, viewing hours on S4C’s main Facebook page rose 72% year on year, with viewing hours on the main Twitter account rising by 87%.
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There were 28.5 million viewing sessions across S4C’s Facebook pages during the year and S4C content was viewed 458,000 times a day on average across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Hansh, the channel’s short-form visual content, had more than 1.4 million viewing sessions in March 2020 – a record – and viewing hours across S4C’s YouTube channels were up 48% during the year.
Asked what he thought he’d achieved during his four years at S4C, Mr Evans said: “To a degree, I took over when there were a lot of things that needed sorting, from the commercials to the then-forthcoming HQ move and now the fact that we’ve outsourced our technology, which is always a risk, to the BBC.
“But I think my legacy is twofold. Part of it’s the [content of the] annual report, which I’m very proud of.
“The other part – good or bad – will be what settlement I leave to my successor in terms of funding for the next five years.
“What have I changed? I always like to start with the audience and the language. So I think we have got closer to the audience over the last four years.
“I think the fact that we’ve done a lot of research, a lot of innovation in trying to reach out on various platforms, the fact that we’ve invested in technology, in digital, the fact that we’ve brought new people in – I think we’re more a fully formed modern channel now than we were four years ago. We serve the audience across not just the old traditional platforms, but also via the new social media we have moved into.
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“We’re providing better news services across the platforms. And we’ve experimented with new types of format. But I think genuinely the programmes have improved – 75% of the people asked this year were under the impression the programmes were improving.
“I also think I leave an organisation that’s a relatively happy ship. When I took over there was a lot of angst around the move to Carmarthen, there was a lot of angst about the joining up on transmission with the BBC.
“Both have been delivered relatively successfully, I hope, and I leave an organisation that hopefully will have a very firm foundation for the future.”
When it was suggested to Mr Evans that S4C had previously had something of a reputation as a channel for “oldies”, Mr Evans said: “I’m approaching being an ‘oldie’ myself, so I would always say the oldies are important and they continue to be important for us.
“The biggest thing is trusting people, and I hope that’s another thing I’ve brought into S4C. I trust colleagues, I trust producers and what we did with the young stuff – and I’m no expert on what young people want – was we actually brought in younger people, and we worked with younger talent that hadn’t been through the old processes of TV production, and said ‘produce stuff that young people would like not just to watch, but to interact with’.
“We went out looking for new formats, we experimented with short form, we had our first mid-form drama that was digital first.
“What I’m particularly proud of is seeing Hansh grow from I think it was 40,000 views when I came in to one period during lockdown when it was 1.4 million views in a month.
“We’ve brought more diversity to the screen, different types of content that we weren’t doing before.
“I hope we’re still serving the oldies, but I hope we have a more holistic content that appeals to a far broader church.”
Explaining why he had applied for the Estyn role, Mr Evans said: I’ve loved my time at S4C, I’ve done lots of stuff and met some brilliant people, but I love education.
“I’ve missed it, so when the chance came up to do something new in an organisation I think is very good but has some thinking to do about how it operates in the future, there’s enough of a challenge there, but also to learn and enjoy for the next few years.
“Estyn is operating in an education system that’s in a huge state of change at the moment, with the new curriculum coming through and various other things.”
Asked whether he had confidence that the new national curriculum was going to provide Wales with what it needs in educational terms, Mr Evans said: “I think I have confidence that if it’s done right, it will.
“One of the roles Estyn will have in this is to look at what’s happening with the curriculum. Every bit of the education system has to adapt to the new system, and what I’ll be doing is making sure that whatever’s going on, and how all the constituent parts of the system are changing, that the education at the coalface, that people are getting in schools – not forgetting other areas, including further education and other elements – is of a high quality and we can be proud of.
“One of the things we’ll have to look at is whether all the elements involved are coming together to provide excellent education in the classroom.”