Possible ideas for the shape of 21st century Welsh media?

With all the issues around the Welsh media I have been looking at some of the solutions that other parts of the UK and how other countries deal with the issue of a lack of strength in depth of local media and I have found two possible options, one in the private sector and one in public sector.

The first is the Scottish online daily newspaper the Caledonian Mercury launched in January this year and ‘The site was set up and is edited by Stewart Kirkpatrick, who ran the Scotsman's website from 2000 to 2007, with its start-up costs financed by himself and his two partners at their marketing consultancy W00tonomy. The operation will be financially very lean. Relying heavily on freelancers and promoted entirely with web-based and viral marketing, Kirkpatrick believes it will break even with a relatively modest 20,000 to 30,000 unique users a day, reading between 1m and 2m pages a month. Advertisers may also sponsor entire sections.’

The second is the Catalan New Agency which has been going since 1999 and in its ‘about us’ section says ‘The Catalan News Agency (CNA) is a project by Agència Catalana de Notícies (ACN) that provides an explanation of the current situation of Catalonia in the world in English, the global Internet language, and that interprets international news from a national viewpoint.

The ACN, a public corporation owned by the Catalan government, is one of the first digital news agencies created in Europe and has been operating since 1999. It is a pioneer in the use of information technologies, teleworking and decentralised organisation applied to a virtual journalistic environment.

The ACN currently employs over 80 professionals and has branches in Madrid, Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin and New York. Furthermore, it shares information with other state-owned agencies and is a member of ANSAmed, the group of Mediterranean agencies. The ACN offers its informative contents in text, photographic, video and audio formats to over 250 different subscribers, such as television channels, radio channels, the press, the digital press, institutions and businesses.'

They are two different models serving different and varied media needs for both readers and views in Scotland and Catalonia and I don’t know if either or neither model could be copied or adapted for the Welsh market. But at the very least there should be a fact finding mission by those who claim to be the most concerned about the future of the Welsh Media. I mean what harm can it do to got and talk to the owners and Editors about things like how much they cost to set up and to run. We might even find a way through the current malaise.

If they still don’t understand the urgency there’s more today from Geraint Talfan Davies over at the IWA and new blogger Welsh Agenda.Any source