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Can Xfm have an indie summer?

Posted in Media, Oliver Milman May 10th, 2007 by Oliver Milman

The news that Xfm has won the right to broadcast in the south Wales region will be a welcome shot in the arm for the station, which has somewhat lost its way recently.

Once considered a cool, indie brand, Xfm has had recently to perform a very uncomfortable stretch between the two stools of brand credibility and commercial success. Unfortunately, the station is failing on both fronts.

The worst scenario for a radio station at the moment is to be owned by GCap – the Capital and Classic FM parent company that seems to lurch from one crisis to another.

Although the company will be hoping for stabilisation with the recent arrival of ‘troubleshooter’ ex-Virgin Radio chief Fru Hazlitt, Xfm has been hampered by what some see as a cumbersome, corporate mentality that belies the station’s fresh, dynamic roots.

Listener numbers have leaked worryingly over the past year, with grumbles that Xfm has become too much like its ‘centre ground’ counterparts Heart, Capital and Virgin Radio in terms of its music policy, with Snow Patrol, Keane and James Blunt regularly heard on a rather repetitive playlist.

This is not entirely Xfm’s fault – the music mainstream has flowed into the station’s remit in recent times, rather than the other way around. But there’s no doubt that once a brand has lost its ‘edgy-ness’, then it can find itself in big trouble unless the mainstream embraces it and softens the blow with plenty of extra revenue.

Xfm has also suffered from a mind-boggling amount of presenter changes, most notably the recent departure of Lauren Laverne, the breakfast show host. Although Popworld host Alex Zane has been lured to replace her, there is little doubt that the loss of the station’s most high-profile DJ is a blow.

Despite the studio’s revolving door and GCap’s money problems, Xfm has received a decent marketing push, with cinema and poster campaigns running at various times over the past year.

But this investment, and the expansion to being a near-national brand (Xfm is also in London, Scotland and Manchester), will require the justification of improved listener numbers. Another poor Rajar performance tomorrow and Xfm could be looking at a revamped format, or back on its own again.