Pobol y Cwm marking its 35th anniversary
THE BBC’S longest running television soap, Pobol y Cwm, is celebrating 35 years on air.
It was first broadcast by BBC Wales on October 16, 1974 moving to S4C when it was launched in 1982.
Over the past three decades famous faces, from broadcaster Michael Aspel to Welsh Big Brother star Imogen Thomas, have appeared on the show, which also featured a young Ioan Gruffudd until 1994.
Storylines have become increasingly dramatic and from showing two nights a week it has extended to five.
One of the original cast members is Emyr Wyn, pictured, who plays Dai Ashurst and joined PYC in 1978.
The actor, who lives in Llandeilo, has seen many changes over the years.
But he believes the soap’s enduring success is its characters, storyline and use of Welsh language.
“When PYC started it was the only Welsh language drama on television,” he says.
“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 Plus 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!”
Wyn has been attacked by women in supermarkets who didn’t like what he was doing on screen and admits being a soap character five days a week can be like ‘living in a parallel universe”.
A programme marking 35 years of Pobol y Cwm will be broadcast on Radio Cymru on Saturday at 9am. See Saturday’s Western Mail Magazine for a special feature on the soap.
'''Friday, October 16, 2009'''
Welsh language television soap-opera Pobol y Cwm celebrated the 35th anniversary of broadcasting on Friday.

Pobol y Cwm — Welsh for "People of the Valley" — 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!"