Welsh soap opera Pobol y Cwm celebrates 35 years on air

Friday, October 16, 2009 Welsh language television soap-opera Pobol y Cwm celebrated the 35th anniversary of broadcasting on Friday.

Pobol y Cwm &mdash; Welsh for "People of the Valley" &mdash; made its first broadcast on BBC One Wales on October 16, 1974. It was transferred onto the Welsh channel S4C in 1982 and has been broadcast there ever since, but is still filmed in the BBC Cymru studios. It is one of the most watched programmes on the Welsh channel and the longest-running television soap-opera produced by the BBC. The episode marking the 35th anniversary of the day the show was debuted was broadcast on Friday.

On the S4C website, the viewing figures state that the show is one of the most watched on the television channel, with viewing figures of around 70,000 on a regular basis. It is also the only soap-opera produced in the United Kingdom that is spoken in a language other than English and one of the two currently running regional soap-operas in the UK, the other being Scottish soap-opera River City. The television programme is the third-longest-running soap-opera overall, behind ITV soap-operas Emmerdale and Coronation Street.

BBC Radio Cymru are to broadcast a programme at 0900 BST on Saturday to celebrate 35 years of programming for the show. Welsh actor Emyr Wyn said about the show: "When PYC started it was the only Welsh language drama on television.

"It’s still an integral part of Welsh-language TV. It’s the only Welsh soap and in the last 10 years it’s become even more accessible. It has lots of non-Welsh speaking viewers too. PYC is on Sky+ and I remember getting a shock when I went to a skiing chalet in France years ago and switched on the television and PYC came on!"