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S4C has announced 29 staff are to lose their jobs following budget cuts.

The Welsh language channel said the redundancies were being made through a voluntary scheme.

S4C had also said it would be willing to consider reduced working hours or job shares for staff.

"It's always sad to see staff leave and I'd like to thank them for their contribution, many of them over many years," said chief executive Arwel Ellis Owen.

"This is the first stage of a process that will lead to restructuring S4C in order to identify other savings and secure the long-term future of the channel."

S4C, launched in 1982 and based in Cardiff, will be funded from part of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ licence fee from 2013.

The chair of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Trust, Lord Patten, said on a visit to Cardiff on Wednesday that he wanted to see a "sensible and effective partnership" between ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Wales and S4C.

Language campaigners have said the decision to transfer almost all the responsibility to funding S4C to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ had put the channel's future in doubt.

S4C faces a 25% budget cut by 2015 as part of last autumn's Spending Review by Chancellor George Osborne.