XFM
I spent more than the allocated time listening to commercial London based indie station XFM. Although I spent time focusing on the station and making notes, I appreciated the music and have listened to it everyday this week for pleasure. I chose this station because I have not yet spend dedicated time listening to it for academic purposes and I found it interesting that a station of that size and specialism was still a commercial station.
I found that the format was very similar to that of Capital, in which the links were fast paced and didn't say anything that has particularly stuck in my mind as interesting. Although I did find that they had specific links dedicated to announcing tour dates and releases, indicating that the station is targetted to a certain type of listener with a particular interest in this type of music.
The music that was played, although specifically indie based, was extremely mainstream. I found that [in the daytime] they played many classics, such as; Libertines - Can't Stand Me Now and other songs that were in the charts, despite being "indie". In two (almost full) days of listening, I heard 4 Kasabian tracks, 3 tracks by the Arctic Monkeys and 3 Oasis tracks, amongst other repeated artists. This indicates to me that their daytime catalogue works on the same system as other commercial stations, A list, B list and recurrent.
I found that the format went [mainly] like this;
- Song
- Song
- Voice Break
- Song
- Voice Break
- Song
- Song
- Ad Break
- Voice Break
- Song
- Voice Break
- Song
- Song
- Song
- Voice Break
Yes, this varied at times, however it is definitely a station that focuses on music rather than talk. I
