The Welsh creative industry is in buoyant mood, thanks to a boom in TV programming. Kristian Dando finds a sector looking beyond its traditional strength in Welsh language shows.
To say that there has been an explosion in interest in the creative business in Wales of late would be an understatement. Driven primarily by the BBC's flagship Doctor Who and spinoff Torchwood, and bolstered by the floating of Welsh film production companies Tinopolis and Boomerang on AIM - not to mention the long-drawn out saga of Dragon Studios off the M4, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Cardiff is the new Cannes and that it's just a matter of time before the Gower becomes a latter-day Malibu. But is the growth as exponential as we're led to believe? And if so can it be sustained, or will Welsh media's day in the sun be as swiftly curtailed as the late 90s "cool Cymru" musical movement?
Doctor Who, Torchwood and children's TV spin-off Sarah Jane Adventures came to Wales for a number of reasons, says BBC Wales' head of marketing, communications and audiences, Rhodri Talfan Davies - not least the pride of Welsh writer Russell T Davies, who insisted the project take place in the principality. "Doctor Who has been enormous for us - it's given BBC Wales and the nation enormous profile, but our brands go beyond it. There was a real ambition within BBC Wales to make its mark on the network. With the quality of the team we had lined up, bringing the program to Wales made sense."
He sees two roles for the media in Wales: "The priority for broadcasters in Wales is to reflect back the realities of life. Scrum V, Wales Today, Radio Wales and Radio Cymru are all about servicing the community here.
"But the development of talent and showcasing what Wales has to offer to a wider audience is also massively important."
While English language broadcasting has given the Welsh media a boost, the Welsh language sector has been plugging away since the early 1980s, when S4C was set up as the only alternative version of the UK's Channel 4. Suddenly, it was possible to make programs in locations as far from London as Caernarfon - and professionals took the chance to return home and make programs - sometimes literally - in their own back yard.
Gwyn Williams, chief executive of production facilities firm Barcud Derwen - which owns the biggest sound-stage in the UK outside of London at its base in Caernafon - says: "Back in the early days, when it was first possible to produce programs without being anywhere near the broadcaster, lots of people left BBC and ITV to set up. It was often the case that a company would consist of little more than one man and his fax machine, which took on freelancers for a few months at a time."
However, times have changed for Welsh producers. While Williams claims there are still as many people working in the industry as during the 80s boom, the number of companies has decreased significantly. "There are very few mid-sized companies left," says Williams.
Be it the likes of Boomerang or Tinopolis snapping up smaller companies, the trend is for amalgamation. "Bigger is better," says Robin Evans of Nant films - producer of Welsh languaging programming like long-running children's soap Rownd a Rownd. His company pratices what it preaches, having just completed a merger worth £35m with Cardiff company Opus. The new company - Rondo - comes into being this month. The move, explains Evans, came out of the current trend for bigger, more powerful companies - but to also expand businesses horizons.
"Small is bijou - but big is beautiful - that's the pattern at the moment," he says. "In a sense, you can be isolated in North Wales. Merging with a Cardiff company could help us out when networking and creating new opportunities is concerned."
While S4C's role in preserving the Welsh language is admirable, it is very much evident that without the trade of the broadcaster, Wales wouldn't have much of a film industry to speak of. Commissioning for many Welsh outfits from the ITV and BBC are relatively small. To put this in perspective, S4C holds the purse strings to some £380m of commissioning budget per year. Williams says: "without S4C, there's no doubt many companies would go to the wall."
It's a reliance that those in the industry are aware of - and some are keen to address. When Insider visited Barcud Derwen, a crew from Children's ITV was there filming Captain Mack. "It's important that Welsh companies find new markets," says Williams. "But tapping into the UK's other markets could prove to be difficult."
"Welsh language producers are being encouraged to pursue other avenues," says Evans. "I support that - but breaking into the UK at large is challenging, and companies may have to look abroad. I'm a Welsh language speaker, and I want S4C to succeed, but we must not become insular and think that this is all we can do."
For Welsh companies to flourish, Evans suggests that partnerships and joint ventures with other firms could make the difference. "Companies need to nurture contacts," he says. "And working with other firms might signify the best way to make inroads in other markets."
Barcud's Williams believes firms should look beyond the UK. "Selling programs abroad can create co-productions, and that's going to be increasingly important. Getting a firm like National Geographic involved and coming up with 20 per cent can make all the difference to a program," he says.
"The creative industries are different from other sectors. Manufacturing, for instance, can go abroad. There are a lot of American imports on television, but you can't stock television with goods from overseas like in shops. People want programming which says something to them about their lives."
Whether the sector continues to grow is another matter altogether - with the television industry in a state of flux through streaming, YouTube, BBC iPlayer and illegal downloads, the guaranteed advertising revenue of commercial broadcasting is far from secure.
"I think that the growth will be maintained, but I'm not sure it'll get any more extensive than it currently is. All the models are looking far less secure than they once were," says Williams. "The big question facing the industry is where is the finance coming from? Even the BBC isn't immune - the licence fee people pay is for having a television in your house, but there's no need to even own a television any more."
So to Boomerang and Tinopolis, the sector's stock exchange representatives. So far, their performances on AIM have been promising. But the torrid time endured by ITV, where chief executive Charles Allen was ousted, shows that shareholders can get angry when thing do not go their way.
There are other challenges, too, says Talfan Davies. "We're expecting more and more and more programs to be made in Wales because of the BBC charter's commitment to produce programs in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland," he says.
"But there are real question marks over ITV, and the industry faces an increasing fragmentation of its audience through the level of choice digital broadcasting offers. How each broadcaster responds to this will define the future of the sector."