XFM - Proposed Expansion of The Xfm Network

Proposed Expansion of The Xfm Network

In recent years, Xfm has held 28-day Restricted Service Licence broadcasts in a number of British cities, including Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff and Glasgow and on 9 June 2005, the group was awarded a permanent FM broadcasting licence to serve the city of Manchester as Xfm Manchester. Also on 4 January 2006, GCap Media relaunched its Central Scotland regional station Beat 106 as Xfm Scotland.

In 2000, Xfm London was added to a number of DAB multiplexes around the country, and in January 2006 it replaced The Storm on a number of local multiplexes, creating near-national coverage. It is reported that this 'national' version of Xfm London (known as Xfm UK) will have local content on it (e.g. News, Travel) increasing with time. However, on 11 February 2008 GCap Media announced that they would be selling the analogue license for the Manchester, Scotland and South Wales stations, retaining only Xfm London.

This decision was made in an attempt to shore-up profits and concentrate on 'winning brands', calling the former nationalisation strategy into question. After this announcement, in early 2008, breakfast show host Alex Zane admitted on air that the future of the London station was also being reviewed, even making jokey references to perhaps being out of a job soon.