XFM Ownership & Structure

XFM started off as a pirate radio station in 1989 and played music which was from unknown bands, until XFM eventually got taken over by Global Radio as it was receiving so many listeners. Before XFM subsequently expanded to a network of four stations where there are currently two main XFM services, they held a 28-day Restricted Service License broadcasts in a number of British cities, including Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff and Glasgow and on 9th June 2005, the group was awarded a permanent FM broadcasting license to serve the city of Manchester as XFM Manchester.

XFM is now also available across most of the country via DAB digital radio. The station has previously employed a number of DJs that have since gone on to even greater fame including Ricky Gervais, Karl Pilkington, Russell Brand, Justin Lee Collins and Dermot O’Leary. XFM don’t only have a channel on radios but they are on television radio channels 0113 on sky, 723 on Freesat, 621 on Talk Talk TV, 965 on Virgin Media and 923 on UPC Ireland. As XFM has been taken over and is now as big a channel as any, they have increased advertisement and have stopped broadcasting unknown bands in the local area.

XFM are a very successful radio station, as they started off as an illegal station broadcasting unknown band names across a small audience, making no profit as the station was all about the music. They have now expanded and become as big a radio station as any and are making a reasonable profit through advertisement. After looking at all this information about XFM I think that the fact XFM have stopped broadcasting unknown bands is a bad action as bands are now less likely to become more known however, XFM had to start making a profit. The only way to make money was to advertise and to get people that wanted advertisement slots on their radio station; they had to start playing bands which were more known so they would receive more listeners.