GTFM

As I have said before, the community radio station GTFM is expanding with satellite bases in Penrhys and Treherbert, which I was pleased to welcome in questions to Rhodri Morgan yesterday:

Leighton Andrews: I welcome the additional investment in community radio that we put through in our budget in December, which I think that the last questioner voted against. May I tell you that, when I visited the Penrhys partnership 10 days ago, it was looking forward to the expansion of the community radio station GTFM to Penrhys and Treherbert? That will be a major development for the participation of ordinary people in community media in my constituency. GTFM plays a profoundly important local role in my community and that of my colleague, Jane Davidson, in Pontypridd, and it also has the excellent Cardiff City phone-in programme.

The First Minister: I have not heard that, but given how Cardiff City is progressing at the moment, I am sure that there will be more and more phone-ins of that nature. It is important to remember that community radio serves communities of different kinds and we have to have a flexible system of applications to cover the different circumstances in which they do or do not get off the ground. Their funding will need to come from a wide variety of sources, including local authorities, the Objective 1 programme and its successor programme, convergence, CFAP, which I mentioned earlier, and Communities First, as well as from the £1 million special grant that was inserted into the budget.