Dydh Da everyone

I wanted to respond sooner but I have been struggling to get BT to actually follow through on its promise of internet access in my house. Still no luck so I am currently squatting a friend's bandwidth to reply. 

Anyway, in short, its my fault, all this angst about mycornwall.tv. I came up with the idea 3 years ago and have been working ever since to put it together. About 10 days ago, I finally got the go ahead on my funding and we had a week to get up and running to meet some very tight deadlines. So in short – it isn't perfect and it definitely isn't finished. The site is limited, its not particularly pretty and the content, whilst being well made and edited, is not ideal from a subject perspective in many cases and yes, the E and C words have slipped in. They will not slip in so easily again. 

I am passionate about my heritage (I am part Hocking and part Trembath, and my family have hailed from St. Just since time immemorial). I am also passionate about the Cornish world and about creating wealth, employment and creative output for Cornwall and Cornish people. It's what this business is about. It isn't designed to replace the Cornishman, or the West Briton, its designed to be a platform for Cornwall and Cornish people, often to external audiences, in order to create jobs, money coming in to the Duchy (proper money to local companies) and an outlet for creativity. 

At the same time, it does need to pay for itself and for our employees, of which there will be 10 by the end of the Summer. Making television, even for the internet, is a very, very expensive business. Running a television platform on the internet also costs a lot of money This means that we need to get the assistance and relationships of brands, whilst also encouraging, in certain circumstances, our audiences to pay (either subscriptions or through watching adverts). Its a simple fact that I have put a shed load of my own money in to this and so have many other people and the EU. The reason? Because we think we can make a difference and make the Cornish world a better place, with online television being our way to do so. 

The main content of this site is aimed at audiences external to Cornwall right now – expats/descendants and yes, tourists and relocators. It's a simple and unavoidable fact that the dynamic of Cornwall is that the majority of people who live here and come here are not Cornish any more and that most people who are Cornish live elsewhere. I was one of them for a long time. It doesn't mean that people don't want to be engaged with Cornwall, wherever they are but they have different views and different focuses sometimes to those on Cornwall24. 

At the same time, we aim to ensure that the road toll on the Tamar Bridge and a couple of kebabs in Newquay are not the only contribution made by people when they engage with or come to Cornwall. Their money supports our other aim, which is to keep alive and indeed foster the Cornish culture, language and heritage and to make it relevant, pertinent and valuable to you, and me, and my son, and all around us.

Again, I really do value your input. We are planning on showing Cornish Wrestling, Gig Boat Racing, Rugby (where rights allow it) and a myriad other subjects. We are also discussing how best to make the language live and breathe through our platform. Additionally, we are looking at Cornish film right now – the challenge being the cost of delivering a film through the internet at a watchable quality without it costing more than going to the cinema. Disitribution of content online is fine but it needs to make sense for you too, otherwise, why bother?

Essentially, the "Chelsea by Sea TV", as someone described it, helps to make all of this possible. The reality of the world, or my world anyway, is that there are many ways of skinning a cat and achieving your aims. Not all of them involve confrontation. I would rather embrace what is very difficult to change through conflict and persuaded a wider audience of the merits of Cornwall and Cornishness. If I have to show buckets and spades and people on holiday to do this, then personally, it's a price well worth paying. I am sure that not all of you will agree but I am happy to stand here (metaphorically) and take the heat.

I hope that you will bear with us as we improve things and support us too. We are doing this, we believe, for the right reasons and with the help and input of our audience, we hope to deliver something that we can all be proud of, whilst generating jobs, commercial opportunities for local companies and above all, damn good, informative and educational entertainment, rooted in Cornwall. I hope too that we can involve you in our creative process. Unlike traditional broadcast, we are not sitting in ivory towers in London, we are sitting in a small office in Falmouth and on a desk in the offices of Cornish World, trying to do good things on a shoestring. Your opinions don't count – they are the lifeblood of what we are trying to do. Please tell me what you want to see and what you don't want to see and I will do my best to make them happen, within the confines of the law, budgets and commercial viability.

Oll an Gwella

Dorian

mycornwall.tv

dorian@mycornwall.tv