The Radio Authority has imposed a £4,000 fine on Capital Radio’s Xfm following a failure to meet the Promise of Performance as set out in its licence description.
Capital Radio bought the indie/alternative London station in May this year (see Capital’s Xfm Move Dependent On Watchdogs) and moved its operation from Charlotte Street to Capital’s headquarters in Leicester Square. During this transfer Xfm’s output was switched to a looped tape of songs following a request to the Radio Authority to do so. Following the return to normal transmission, however, the RA found that the new Xfm was failing to meet the requirements of its licence.
The Authority said that the station failed to broadcast live sessions, a weekly review show, interviews and job vacancies. These features have since been reinstated and Capital says that the RA is now happy with its current output. The Authority says that it is continuing to monitor Xfm’s output and will review the situation again in a meeting at New Year.
Listeners to the station, however, have not been so forgiving of Capital’s changes to the playlists. Over 280 letters of complaint have been sent to the Radio Authority; an extraordinarily high number in these situations. Last Saturday (10 October) a group of disgruntled fans led a march to Leicester Square under the banner EXfm, protesting about the station’s move toward mainstream.
Since the Capital takeover, a number of DJs and specialist shows have been axed and the station’s playlists have become more standardised. This has prompted a number of journalists, listeners and musicians to complain. However, it is understood that Capital actually expected a greater degree of backlash to the changes, despite apparently having had a brick through the window and an ‘X’ laid in stones outside the Capital offices. Capital today said: “Our resolve for Xfm to be at the forefront of promoting new music and talent remains as strong as ever.”
The Radio Authority today said that it takes all complaints very seriously and will continue to consider any that it receives. The chairman, Sir Peter Gibbings, said:
“We have a statutory duty to ensure that licensees do not change the character of the service which was agreed at the time of the licence award. When permission was given for Capital to take over Xfm, we made it clear that we would only agree minor changes to Xfm’s output. Since then, we have received a large number of complaints. We acknowledge that some of these have been part of an orchestrated campaign. Nevertheless, we shared the complainants’ concerns about the general direction that station was taking. Following the station’s move to new premises, Xfm had failed to observe sufficiently the spirit, and in some aspects the letter, of its Promise of Performance.
“However, we acknowledge and welcome the recent changes which Xfm has made to bring the station back within its Promise.”
Radio Authority: 0171 430 2724 Capital Radio: 0171 766 6000
