Media
In 2005 the area was granted its first radio station when Afan FM, the inspiration of a group of local young people headed by 19-year-old Craig Williams, was awarded a five-year licence by Ofcom to serve Port Talbot and neighbouring Neath. Afan FM transmitted on 107.9FM and online via its website. The station was based at a broadcasting centre housed within the AquaDome Leisure Complex on Aberavon Seafront but, following a December 2009 fire at the AquaDome, moved to Aberafan House, an office complex adjacent to the town's shopping centre. In late 2011 it was announced that Afan FM was to shut after an unexpected tax bill; it ceased live broadcasting at 2pm on 13 December 2011.
The area is also served by The Wave (96.4FM), Swansea Sound (1170MW), Nation 80s (102.1FM), Real Radio (106.0FM) and Nation Radio (107.3FM), all of which are available on DAB. Radio Phoenix also operates a 24 hour hospital radio service for the patients & staff of Neath Port Talbot Hospital in Baglan Moors.
The town is served by several newspapers. The Port Talbot Guardian was a weekly paper published by Media Wales, part of the Trinity Mirror group, but ceased publication in October 2009. The Swansea-based daily South Wales Evening Post and the weekly Courier and Tribune are also distributed in the town and are published by South West Wales Publications, part of the Northcliffe Media group.
The Port Talbot Magnet is a hyperlocal online website that publishes local news and events from the Neath and Port Talbot area.
Neath Port Talbot Council publish a quarterly newsletter entitled "Pride" - which is delivered to every home in the Neath Port Talbot area.
Cân i Gymru is usually filmed in Port Talbot. Also TV programmes such as Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures have filmed in this town.
Read more about this topic: Port Talbot
Famous quotes containing the word media:
“The media network has its idols, but its principal idol is its own style which generates an aura of winning and leaves the rest in darkness. It recognises neither pity nor pitilessness.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“The media no longer ask those who know something ... to share that knowledge with the public. Instead they ask those who know nothing to represent the ignorance of the public and, in so doing, to legitimate it.”
—Serge Daney (1944–1992)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)