S4C schedule shake up

Presumably they have both languages selectable on the normal DVB subtitle system?

Years ago I remember it being 889 for Welsh and 888 for English, known as Transl888 when it was a translation of Welsh

I’m sure on Sky you are able to change the language setting to Welsh in order to get Welsh language subtitles. If you don’t do this then the subtitles on S4C are in English by default.

During the mid to late 1990s then their Welsh to English subtitles were presented as Transl888. When Channel 4 started to burn the 888 or Subtitles caption to the start of their programmes instead of the idents in 1996, then this would also appear on S4C as well as on S4C’s idents.

Subs are still there on 888!

I think that might have been true of some programmes but not all.

Up until 1993 C4's feed to S4C was the same 'dirty' feed that the regional ITV companies received to insert their ads.
Post 93, and C4's new 34 Mb/s distribution, I'm sure S4C had both clean and dirty feeds available from HFR, so that would probably explain the absense or otherwise. S4C would have required a clean feed anyway once C4 adopted ECPs etc

They’ve wrote stay at home in both Welsh and English on the top right of the screen.

I'm glad you told us that, we'd never have noticed otherwise.

I have an S4C related question that might as well go here:

In the early years, I assume the Equity dispute and general lack of advertisers affected S4C as it did Channel 4. Did S4C use break filler slides and music similar to Channel 4, for HTV Wales to fall back on if they couldn’t insert ads for any reason?

I understand that Channel 4 broadcast a filler during every junction from 1982 to 1992, regardless of whether anyone saw it, but with S4C having only one ITV company to liaise with, perhaps the arrangement was different. Do any Welsh viewers recall seeing break fillers on S4C?

I've never been able to discover whether HTV's ad playout came into S4C as a remote source, and therefore under control of S4C's pres control room, or a lá C4, and looped through HTV on the way to the transmitters.

In either case, the breaks would have been trimmed down (or ditched completely) according to the advertising sold.

C4 in the early days would show movies after midnight on Friday and Saturday, and often these had no ad breaks at all (so no advertising had been sold in any ITV region)

However, don't forget that S4C carried some C4 stuff 'live', (notably The Tube) so there might have been the need to break fill there ?

Didn't Westcountry take the spare capacity from Cardiff when the latter stopped inserting C4 ads?

Would this have been for the West region or S4C?

In the early days at least didn't BBC content on S4C have to go out ad free?

Yes, no centre breaks. Still the case I think ?