Both Channel Four and Channel Five are part of the Freeview digital offering, again available from the two main transmitters, since ONdigital’s launch in 1998. However, this will change when Cornwall has its analogue television transmitters switched off in the summer of 2009. As well as having some Cornish influenced presenters, the Spotlight news team also have a news studio in Truro, which is situated inside the BBC Radio Cornwall complex. The two news teams work closely together, to ensure news coverage is thorough across the county on the Spotlight programme. Television came to Cornwall in 1956 with the opening of the new transmitter at North Hessary Tor.
It is the world of sport and specifically, water sports, which has seen and developed the third section of magazine growth in Cornwall. Surfing is key to Cornwall’s tourism, and this has led to titles like Surf Girl magazine, Pitpilot magazine and Wavelength catering for this market. These titles not only cover surfing in Cornwall but the UK too, and in the case of Surf Girl, internationally. Another new title is Adventure Cornwall, which covers climbing and other outdoor pursuits.
Toby Parkins, director of software outsourcing company Headforwards, based at Pool Innovation Centre, who are partners in the EDGE Awards, believes that the whole sector needs to be recognised collectively for maximum impact. Furthermore, there’s a huge amount of collaboration in Cornwall, with networks like Software Cornwall helping businesses work together and Digital Peninsula Network supporting 700 members across Cornwall. There are more than 680 tech companies in Cornwall supporting more than 1,380 highly paid jobs and all are growing and recruiting at an extraordinary rate.
One noted species in decline locally is the Reindeer lichen, which species has been made a priority for protection under the national UK Biodiversity Action Plan. Cardiff and Swansea, across the Bristol Channel, have at some times in the past been connected to Cornwall by ferry, but these do not operate now. Cornish piracy was active during the Elizabethan era on the west coast of Britain. Cornwall is well known for its wreckers who preyed on ships passing Cornwall’s rocky coastline. Subsequently, however, Norman absentee landlords became replaced by a new Cornish-Norman ruling class including scholars such as Richard Rufus of Cornwall. The Cornish language continued to be spoken and acquired a number of characteristics establishing its identity as a separate language from Breton.
Truro, Cornwall’s administrative centre and only city.Cornwall’s only city, and the home of the council headquarters, is Truro. St Just in Penwith is the westernmost town in England, though the same claim has been made for Penzance, which is larger. St Ives and Padstow are today small vessel ports with a major tourism and leisure sector in their economies. Newquay on the north coast is another major urban settlement which is known for its beaches and is a popular surfing destination, as is Bude further north, but Newquay is now also becoming important for its aviation-related industries.
Indeed, both the printed Cornwall Media and the mining industry fed off each other. By promoting livestock markets outside of a farmer’s immediate area, it stimulated expansion of the rural economy. Looking at archive newspapers in Cornwall from the 1830s and 1840s, they are full of detail about markets, property, livestock farming equipment, mining equipment and prices for buying and selling tin and copper as well as other metals. Job vacancies were widely advertised, meaning that workers did not have to toil in their immediate village or town, This became especially important when the mining slump started in the 1880s. Jobs and opportunities were advertised from far-flung places like South Africa, Australia, Bolivia and Canada, where Cornish entrepreneurs had already started new mining operations using skills they had learnt back home.
Commercial Radio came to parts of Cornwall, mainly the south east of the county with the launch of Plymouth Sound in 1975. This gave those listeners fortunate to hear it, pop music in stereo on FM for the first time. The two main FM transmitters for Cornwall, namely North Hessary Tor, which opened in 1956, and Four Lanes/Redruth, , although transmitting BBC Radio 2, were not yet stereo capable. The cliffs at BedruthanCornwall has a tourism-based seasonal economy which is estimated to contribute up to 24% of Cornwall’s gross domestic product. Cornwall’s unique culture, spectacular landscape and mild climate make it a popular tourist destination, despite being somewhat distant from the United Kingdom’s main centres of population. Surrounded on three sides by the English Channel and Celtic Sea, Cornwall has many miles of beaches and cliffs; the South West Coast Path follows a complete circuit of both coasts.