Cân i Gymru

The birth of this annual St. David's Day spectacular came about when the BBC Cymru light entertainment department, led by Meredydd Evans, explored the possibility of choosing a Welsh language song to enter the Eurovision Song Contest.

They appeared to be quite confident about the prospect up until the moment when management in London decreed that the British Broadcasting Corporation can only allow for one entry.

Thus, they settled on doing their own contest - Can Disg a Dawn, a competition based around the Welsh language pop show Disg a Dawn (as seen on Victor Lewis-Smith's TV Offal). Some 40 years on and a subtle name change later, Can i Gymru (Song for Wales) remains a highlight of St. David's Day on Welsh television (or as near to the day as they can get, at least).

The format has varied over the years - in recent years, nine songs have made up the contest (having been chosen from a total of over 100 entries a month beforehand) and these have been split into 3 categories – professional songwriters, band or individual performers and public. The winners from those groups went through to a final sing-off which led to a viewer phone vote. By 2010, a straight forward sing-off involving eight songs would be decided by both judges and viewers votes.

The victors claim a £10,000 cheque and go onto Celtavision, held in Ireland every year during the Pan-Celtic Festival - TV coverage of which has been patchy at times, but nevertheless, it has seen many Welsh songs go onto claim victory.

No contest was held in 1973.

The initial contest saw seven songs being featured over the course of seven weeks as part of Disg a Dawn, followed by a final in June shown across the UK.

Rather ironically, that first networked final was billed as part of BBC programming to mark the investiture of then-Prince Charles in Caernarfon - an event opposed by many among the Welsh-speaking audience it was targeting.

The more familiar format was introduced in 1970, with the contest broadcast in colour for the first time a year later and the first St David's Day contest in 1972.

Annual interest in the contest, even among Welsh language media, was slow to build. Infact, the 1980 contest - held in an Aberystwyth pub - was not even televised and relegated to sound-only coverage on Radio Cymru.

The 1982 contest saw all of the songs performed by Bando, with lead singer and future host Caryl Parry Jones.

Initially held each year at the BBC's Cardiff studios, HTV began sharing hosting duties with the Beeb biannually from 1977 until the launch of S4C in 1982. BBC Cymru again handed over the reigns - this time permanently - to independent production companies from 1987 onwards.

The 2001 contest, held at the Llangollen Pavilion, took place without a live audience because of the foot and mouth outbreak. Twenty years later, only a virtual audience was allowed at the Wales Millennium Centre due to ongoing Covid restrictions.

Multiple winners:
Geraint Griffiths - 1984 and 1994
Bryn Fon - 1990 (with Sobin a'i Smaeliad) and 1997
Steffan Rhys Williams - 1999 and 2003 (with Non Parry)
Ryland Teifi - 2006 and 2022

Future ITV Wales newsreader Cadi Gwyn Edwards wrote and performed the winning 2017 song, 'Rhydd' (Free).

Britain's Got Talent finalist Gruffydd Wyn won the 2020 contest in Aberystwyth - held shortly before the Covid pandemic - with the aptly titled 'Cyn i'r Llenni Gau' (Before the Curtains Close).

In 2003, there were special preview programmes where viewers were shown all the entrants from a category (one per programme). However by 2004, the previews were relegated into the Planed Plant childrens' strand and linked by PP's continuity team.

In keeping with a modern trend at S4C, production of Can i Gymru has been tendered out on two-year contracts. 2008's tendering round saw then-current producers Afanti win back the contract.

From 2009 onwards, a non-finalist entry has been chosen as the winner of a special Jury prize for creativity worth £500 (with ten runners-up prizes of £100).

The 2015 contest at the Anglesey Showground drew ire for sound problems and low production quality, as well as a hugely controversial rule allowing the judging panel to eliminate four of the eight songs before the audience vote opened.

The phone vote for the 2024 edition was marred by technical problems, with some viewers claiming they had tried multiple times but failed to get through - and others claiming their phone bills were much higher than normal. OFCOM, who received ten complaints, found the vote had been conducted unfairly and materially misled viewers. S4C apologised and offered to reimburse affected viewers, but maintained the final result was valid and verified (the winning song, 'Ti' by Sara Davies, went onto win at the Pan Celtic Festival).

The songwriting team behind the winning 2026 song Y Gân (The Song) managed the rare feat of having two entries in the final eight.

Y Casgliad Cyflawn - compilation of winning songs from 1969 to 2005, available from SAIN

Official site in Welsh and English

BBC programme page