BBC Radio Cymru

BBC began broadcasting on 3 January 1977. The first programme was an extended news bulletin presented at 6:45 by Gwyn Llewellyn and Geraint Jones. This was followed at 7:00 by the first edition of the breakfast magazine show , presented by Hywel Gwynfryn with contributions from a network of local reporters in studios across Wales. The first record played on Radio Cymru was by Hergest. The station was the first broadcasting outlet dedicated wholly to programmes in Welsh, allowing much more airtime than had previously been available on the old Radio 4 Wales (or its predecessors the Welsh Home Service and, before that, the BBC Welsh Regional Programme). Initially, the service was part-time and restricted to breakfast shows, extended news bulletins at breakfast, lunchtime & early evening and a number of off-peak opt-outs from a sustaining Radio 4 Wales feed. In November 1979, 's programming was expanded to 65 hours a week, introducing mid-morning output on weekdays, along with a growing line-up of dramas, light entertainment and documentaries. The network continued to expand over the next two decades before achieving a continuous service of up to 20 hours a day. Later developments in the 21st century saw introducing a nightly youth strand, C2, and regional opt-outs for South West Wales, which were axed in 2008 but later reintroduced to provide live commentary of Swansea City A.F.C. matches. The station has also been streaming online since January 2005. is similar in format to many "general" radio stations, with news programmes at breakfast (, 'First Post'), lunchtime ( – a debate-centred programme), and drive-time (, 'Afternoon Post'); together with presenter-driven sequences mixing music with guests, calls from listeners and competitions. also produces drama, features, current affairs and sports programming. Over the years, it has done much to promote the language, with its sports commentators coining new terms which later became accepted by Welsh linguists. One of its more unusualand longest-runningprogrammes is '''', a poetry competition in which teams must come up with poetry in specific styles on specific topics. In 2018, following a three-month pilot service, a second stationBBC Radio Cymru 2was launched on a permanent basis. Initially providing a music and entertainment alternative to the breakfast news programme, the station gradually expanded its own programming while continuing to simulcast output from the main Radio Cymru service. In March 2024, the station expanded its bespoke output from 15 to 60 hours a week, after receiving approval from the broadcast regulator Ofcom to become a fully-fledged public service radio station. ==Listening figures==

According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly audience of 95,000 listeners and a listening share of 2.2%, as of December 2023. The average number of hours per listener is 11.5 hours a week. By February 2025, the audience has increased to 117,000 weekly listeners. The percentage of younger listeners aged between 15 and 25 had also increased from 3% to 11%. ==Presenters==

Notable current presenters include: • Shân Cothi (Bore Cothi) • Caryl Parry Jones (Monday-Thursday nights) • Huw Stephens (Thursday evenings) ==Transmission==

BBC Radio Cymru is broadcast across Wales FM and DAB. It is also available on Freeview in Wales, throughout the UK on Freesat, Sky, Virgin Media and internationally online on BBC Sounds. As Radio Cymru was created from an opt-out of BBC Radio 4, it inherited the FM transmitters previously used by Radio 4 across Wales. At the time of the station's launch, it was the only radio service in the UK broadcasting solely on FM. Main transmitters Relays ==See also==