Annual report and accounts
While the traditional, linear service remains a key platform for broadcasting our content, S4C, as well as other public service broadcasters continue to see a marked shift in viewing towards our video-on-demand services. We are therefore increasingly focusing on the performance of our content on Clic and iPlayer.
The importance of this approach is underlined by the viewing data for 2023–24 where, once again, we have seen a significant increase in the hours of S4C content watched on Clic (+12%) and the iPlayer (+35%) compared to the previous year.
While the availability of S4C content on iPlayer – through our long-term partnership with the BBC – is clearly welcome, the continual development of our own video-on-demand player, Clic, enables us to provide an enhanced service to the audience. During 2023–24, the refreshed version of the Clic app continued to be rolled out onto various devices, with the app also launched on the Freeview Play platform in July 2023.
Due to the enhancements made to Clic, S4C was able to provide individual streams for the first time from each of the Red, White and Green pavilions at the 2023 Urdd Eisteddfod. This proved incredibly popular amongst audiences.
We sought to build on this success with our live streaming from the Royal Welsh Show, which also proved popular. 238,000 viewing sessions for live stream content over the four-day event – the majority of which (194,000) via our presence on Facebook.
S4C remained popular on Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms. During 2023–24, we saw over 1 million viewing sessions for a clip from Gogglebocs Cymru (Cwmni Da / Chwarel) about learning Welsh on Instagram and TikTok.
In August 2023, the Newyddion S4C service launched its TikTok presence which managed to secure nearly 70,000 viewing sessions for its content within its first three months. Our internal news team now publishes between 200 and 300 posts each week across its various social media presences, ensuring that Welsh-language news from S4C reaches audiences across a wide variety of platforms. At the same time, we saw a 54% increase in page views on our Newyddion S4C web presence.
In September 2023, S4C’s news programme for children and young people was relaunched as Newyddion Ni (BBC Cymru). Broadcast on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays during term time, it is now first released on S4C Clic at 11am so that it can be watched in schools, before its broadcast on the linear service that evening and subsequently released on iPlayer. Some news items featured on Newyddion Ni are also published on YouTube. This release schedule intentionally attempts to make it easier to access the programme on a platform which is convenient for the target audience.