Afan FM was formed in 2003 by then 18 year old local resident Craig Williams - frustrated by the lack of opportunities available for him to pursue his ambition of working in radio as well as a less than pleasurable experience in Hospital Radio - he decided to start a campaign to bring a local radio station to the Neath Port Talbot area.
The campaign received widespread support from the local community, as well as the press and local businesses - it was thanks to an initial donation from transplanUK (a radio equipment hire firm and supplier) that Afan FM became the first radio station in over a decade to conduct a trial broadcast in the Neath Port Talbot area - in October 2003.
After this, funding and support was secured to keep conducting trial broadcasts in order to prove there was a need and demand for a local radio station in the area. Local MPs and AMs joined in the fight and lobbyed on the stations behalf in support of the campaign. Local residents also did their bit - over 4,000 text messages and nearly 200 support letters were received during one trial broadcast alone!
A formal application was made in November 2004 and in April 2005 - Ofcom (the UK's communications regulator) granted Afan FM with the first new Community Radio licence in the UK
Funding was secured from the Welsh Assembly Government and Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council for the construction of the station's new state of the art studio complex, housed with the Afan Lido on Aberavon Seafront in Port Talbot.
On April 17th, at approximately 1pm - Ofcom's engineers cleared the station for broadcast on its new frequency of 107.9FM. At 2pm on April 20th - Afan FM launched its full service of programming and became the first and only dedicated local radio station for Neath & Port Talbot. After the success of this launch, in October 2008, the station launched its long awaited dedicated transmitter for the Neath & Neath Valleys areas on 97.4FM
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