Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 10:49 am on 15 July 2020.
Llywydd, I agree with all of those points. We've used our advertising budget during the coronavirus crisis directly to place advertising with local radio, including Swansea Sound. We've done our best to offer as much access to those local outlets as possible so that they can use their platforms to make sure that people have the information that they need. And in the daily press conferences that we have been holding, Llywydd, we've had 12 local broadcasters regularly taking place—again, including Swansea Sound. And I, myself, have given interviews to 20 different local radio and local newspapers over the last three months, again just to make sure that they have direct access to the Welsh Government so we can support them in the work that they do.
We've repurposed our independent community journalism fund and seven publications in Wales have shared in £76,500 of funding to support them in the financial challenges they face, and we have helped two stations to have access to Ofcom's £400,000 community radio fund. Ofcom intend to launch, quite soon, the second iteration of that fund, and the Welsh Government will work with community radio stations in Wales to make sure that they have the best chance of securing funding from that source as well.
So, I agree with David Melding about the importance of the things that we can do to help, and I hope that I've been able to demonstrate that, in all the different things we're able to do, we have very much had local print and broadcasting outlets at the forefront of our thinking during the pandemic.