National Library of Wales wins grant to create National Broadcast Archive for Wales

Nearly £5million awarded by the National Lottery will bring together BBC and ITV archive material.


The National Lottery funding will be used to ensure that safeguard and make accessible approximately 240,000 hours of radio and television footage charting almost 100 years of broadcasting.


BBC material will be added to the National Library’s existing ITV Wales archive and will be housed in a new purpose-built storage facility at the National Library. The materials will also be made accessible to the public at four locations across the country.


A series of mobile clip centres will ensure isolated and rural communities can access the archive. 1,500 BBC Wales archive clips of material will be made available for anyone to view online at home or by teachers in school.

Key features of the project

  • The collection includes 180,000+ items covering for example WW2; sporting achievements, the Aberfan disaster, the campaign for devolution and the Miners’ strike
  • 1,500 volunteers will help catalogue the archive material and develop imaginative and creative community activities
  • Mobile clip centres making the information more accessible to a wider audience

More information via the National Library of Wales website