This is the first study of the early formative years of one of Wales’s most important cultural organisations – Sianel Pedwar Cymru (S4C). The volume chronicles the decisions and activities of the channel during its trial period between 1981–5. Through a detailed study of minutes, correspondence and interviews with individuals who were key to the channel’s development during its early years, it chronicles the many challenges, successes and failures which faced the S4C Authority and its staff as they aimed to create a Welsh-language television service that would meet the desires and needs of the audience in Wales. S4C is no ordinary channel, and no other period in its history portrays this more effectively than the trial period given to it at the beginning of the 1980s.