Revisiting the impact of S4C

Two years ago, Wavehill was commissioned by S4C to undertake an impact assessment of S4C’s activities over the 2022/23 financial year. The scope of our assessment was wide, covering the broadcaster’s economic, social, cultural and linguistic impacts. We found that S4C was a core anchor institution for the creative sector in Wales, supporting jobs across Wales, generating a healthy return on licence fee funding, and collaborating with a wide range of businesses and institutions to both support and widen the reach of the Welsh language.

Having established a baseline of S4C’s impacts in our initial report, we have now completed an updated assessment of the broadcaster’s activities looking at the 2024/25 financial year. Our follow-up study has shown that S4C continues to commission a broad range of high quality content and generate a positive Wales-wide impact in a shifting media and funding landscape.

S4C has been operating in a challenging financial environment, with inflation outpacing its allocated budget growth, leading to a real-term reduction in license fee funding 2024/25 compared to 2022/23. Internally, S4C have also undergone several internal changes which are relevant to mapping their economic impact, including the launch of S4C Masnachol’s Commercial Content and Commercial Growth Funds, which seek to support ambitious projects that support S4C’s long term strategic goals or have the potential to appeal to international audiences.

Given that S4C externally commissions most of its content, it was essential for us to understand how their expenditure and operations impacted their suppliers, namely Wales’ independent media production sector. Analysing detailed spend data from S4C, we could map how spend circulated around the Welsh and wider UK economies to quantify their impact on business growth and jobs. To account for the changing ways in which the broadcaster generates economic impact, we worked together with S4C to update our economic impact assessment framework to capture these impacts.

Our approach went beyond minor updates to our economic impact framework, with our social impact research placing a greater focus on S4C’s partnership working. Through a series of focused case studies we have outlined the ways in which S4C provides financial and advisory support and extends the value of content they’ve already commissioned to bring about wider positive social impacts. These impacts have included upskilling the creative workforce in Wales and supporting new entrants behind and in-front of the screen, expanding the representation of Welsh communities and the Welsh language and creating a range of educational resources to support Welsh-medium education.

Also new to this study are individual-level economic impact assessments of productions commissioned by S4C, including Y Llais (Boom), Gogglesbocs Cymru (Chwarel and Cwmni Da), and Heno/Prynhawn Da (Tinopolis) and impact assessments of some of the early investments undertaken by S4C and S4C Masnachol.

Our research for 2024/25 sought to understand again the economic and social impact that S4C generates, focusing on how it may have changed from the baseline we established in our initial report. Some of the key findings from our research can be seen in the graphic below.

Working with S4C has allowed us to build on our strong track record of collaborating with organisations to demonstrate their impact. Our unique research offer takes into account the context in which an organisation operates to build a bespoke research method and approach to showcasing the positive impacts that they create.

If you would like more information about Wavehill’s research work, including our bespoke socio-economic impact assessments, please contact Rhys Maher or Michael Pang.