AIBU to be pissed off at XFM's axing and even more so at the Men Focused Rebranding?

[RedToothBrush]

Global Radio are axing XFM - both London and its Manchester sister shows.

Instead they are replacing it with a rebrand radio station called Radio X fronted by Chris Moyles on its Breakfast Show.

Their pitch is that 'Its target audience will be men aged between 25- to 44-years-old, and will play rock and guitar-based music'.

Not only am I distraught that Manchester is loosing a place which championed and promoted local music and musician, but I'm also incredibly peeved at this rebranding being pitched at men only.

Global's own description of XFM's current listenership and target audience is as follows:
XFM listeners are engaged, eclectic and influential.

As a community, they’re loyal and enthusiastic. As music fans, they’re passionate and supportive. And as an audience, they’re exactly what advertisers crave. They go to gigs, live events and club nights, they have taste when it comes to music culture, cinema, video, gaming and exhibition, and they’re the kind of people who help form opinions across the world of music and entertainment. Put simply, they’re huge consumers and tastemakers. And that means XFM offers huge opportunities.

And its listenership is 'Slightly favoured by men at 63% compared to women at 37%'. And now women are apparently being erased in this rebranding. With '79% of those who listen to XFM across the UK are aged between 15-44.'

So effectively the difference really seems to be that women are being axed from the target demographic.

It doesn't even make commercial sense for male listeners. A hell of a lot of XFM listeners listen to XFM because they never could stand Moyles and the axing of the Manchester radio station is going to destroy its huge percentage of the radio listenership up here.

Its a sad decision for music lovers. Moyles, Vernon Kay, Johnny Vaughan and Ricky Wilson are Blandsville Extreme.

AIBU in thinking that the whole pitch is both a travesty for music and really has a sexist vibe to it, that women don't like guitar bands and rock music?

What music and radio should I be listening to instead according to Global's bollocks logic?

(And BBC PLEASE don't axe 6Music now).

I wonder if they bid for Moyles, realised they were spending a fortune on him so thought the only way of getting their money's worth was to do a massive rebranding and relaunch so that now it's like a radio lads' mag and they can go in with a big launch. It is such a shame as it feels like the music is being pushed further and further down their list of priorities.

It's about The music you can get anywhere (6 Music, Absolute, Spotify, YouTube, iTunes etc). The 'banter' you will only be able to get on Radio X. Moyles have proved that he can draw a massive audience through the force of his personality. That's what Global's investing in.

And, just to hammer the point home from earlier, XFM has always been aimed at men. On average, more men than women like guitar music and more women than men like dance and pop music. These are the broad strokes on which commercial media works.

No it wasn't always aimed at men. When I started listening in 1992 it was about being the station to hear "alternative" music, where I grew up there was music tribalism but the tribes were all mixed. We, as a mixed group of teens, were incredibly excited. It was for us. It never said "this is for males".

The launching of this was a big deal and half the people who supported them back then and maybe still have been told to get fucked. Like if a favourite restaurant or club for years suddenly said " no girls ".

You don't get to say who that it was " for men " back then because I know that it was for young people who liked "alternative" bands.

I'm really pissed off at the suggestion that all the young women and girls listening to it back then were somehow "wrong", that they were always meant to be excluded and were too stupid to realise.

Fucks sake.

Actually this is really basic sexism isn't it.

Years ago, when this station started, where I lived anyway, there was not a huge divide between male and female, and especially not in this music scene. Sure the girls wore makeup and the boys didn't, but the clothing was not as wildly different as now (DMs, german army coat, black tight jeans for the boys black leggings for the girls etc). Girls had short hair sometimes and loads of boys had long. The clubs were full of boys and girls drinking snakebite and loving the music and dancing like maniacs and getting off with each other and generally having a wonderful time.

This station launched in my part of the world when I was doing my a-levels and it was a big deal for us lot, as a station that reflected the music we were into. It was exciting. It had just come out of being pirate, it was not for middle aged men for gods sake it was for young people.

Now, with the changes over the last couple of decades in society, people look at it and say, well it seems like it's for men, because men like guitars and girls like cheese. So therefore it must always have been for men. Any females who listen now are an aberration. And therefore, this must always have been so. It was never a brand new exciting venture that grew out of illegal broadcasting and wanted to cater to alternative youth. It was always a middle aged middle of the road thing for men and that is a fact.

This rewriting history and writing all of the girls who were out on the alternative scene in London and all the rest of it is basic sexism isn't it. They talk about how women get written out of more serious history but here is a great example - this has always been for men apparently.

Whatever. You're wrong.

"Xfm??s roots lie in an early-90s north London pirate station called Q102. In 1992, the team behind the station ?? who included NME journalist Steve Lamacq and programme controller Sammy Jacob ?? decided to go legitimate, and ran a series of Restricted Service Licence transmissions.

These were aimed at the boroughs of Camden and Islington, but their signal went a long way, and Xfm quickly built up a dedicated following. Chris Parry ?? whose Fiction Records label was home to The Cure ?? got involved and housed the station in his Charlotte Street offices.

The station was quickly adopted by the city??s indie music fans. As well as Radio 1??s Evening Session, London did have GLR ?? but the BBC station??s commitment to news, the odd bit of ??quality rock?? and ??community?? broadcasting meant new bands could only get a break during a couple of daytime shows."

INDIE FANS SEE NOT MEN FOR FUCKS SAKE.

Some of these posts are making me irrationally angry.

Say that women and girls should fuck off out of it now if you really must, but don't tell us we should never have been there in the first place.

OK, I concede you may be right. The early incarnation of XFM, before it got a permanent licence, was not bound by the realities of commercial radio and was a much more egalitarian beast, driven by a love of the music.

However, within six (?) months on-air permanently, it had no audience, was haemorraghing money and had to be bought out by Capital Radio.

At that point, if not before, it would have very consciously become a male-targeted station. By the time it could to rolling-out to Manchester, Wales and Scotland, it was explicity described as such in the licence applications.

But I do think you misunderstand the terminology. A male-targeted station doesn't mean you may not listen, or aren't expected to listen. Radio X will have loads of women listeners (probably 30-40%). But just like Dave, the TV channel, Q the music magazine, Sky Sports or Planet Rock, it's a media property designed to gather as big a male audience as it can, so Global can sell that audience to its advertisers.

" A male-targeted station doesn't mean you may not listen, or aren't expected to listen. Radio X will have loads of women listeners (probably 30-40%)"

This is very interesting too.

Things that are marketed to men, women do them too. But women don't need to have it marketed to them, and actually the "no girls allowed" thing seems to appeal to a lot of men.

Men do not tend to buy or consume things that are marketed to females at all and if they do they do it fairly quietly.

So men need to be pandered to and women don't, basically.

It's shit.

I really need to dig out that article about marketing of computer games and how they knew girls were playing but they deliberately set out to exclude them and make them feel not really very welcome if they join in as actually men like that (speaking generally). And this is the same. So the women who want to hear the music and listen to this station are expected to put up with the "banter" which boils down a lot of the time to "you shouldn't be here anyway so put up with it" in a way that men would not be expected to. And women do put up with it as they're used to being made to feel unwelcome in certain situations.

This was an area where men and women were (on the face of it) welcome, and especially at the beginning. Women have now be told, this isn't for you, and warned basically, if you want to listen you're not allowed to be upset about any of the things we say or do. Same as when we go into any other male majority environments.

It's crap. They can fuck off.

found it - article on marketing "why marketers fear the female geek"

Global's biggest stations are targeted at women. Heart and Capital each have around 60/40 female/male listeners. (So men obviously do consume these products). They're available more or less nationally on FM and DAB.

Up until now, Global haven't had a national male brand to match. Now they have.

Interested to see that Capital is seen as a female brand. When I listened years ago while at school it was mostly blokes etc phoning in. I think they even did some campaign for white van drivers (mostly men at the time). No idea what it is like these days but it had Chris Tarrant and Pat Sharpe and I am pretty sure it wasn't aimed predominantly at women.

I live in the NE so dont get the MCR or LDN based stations.

What type of rock music does the normal XFM play? Is this new station playing similar then?

I used to listen to Kerrang, then that left digital so tuned to Planet Rock. 10 mins later retuned to TeamRock then that left digital. Would love to find another station (either FM or digital) that plays good rock music (and I dont mean Status Quo or the likes).

I dont care who its aimed at if I like it I like it, if I dont then well I wont listen.

Haha Bolograph, we are exactly the affluent professionals they want who do spend money on music, gigs, and equipment, we just don't spend it on our car!

we are exactly the affluent professionals they want who do spend money on music, gigs, and equipment

Yeah, because the companies spending money on advertising on independent radio are exactly music venues and equipment manufacturers. I mean, you can't switch on a commercial radio station these days for a top-dollar commercial for Neve chsnnel strips.

To repeat: commercial radio stations are paying to play records. If you go out and buy that record, or a ticket to the band's gig at the Dog and Duck, or the guitarist's favourite fuzz pedal so you can sound just like the record, the radio station still loses money. Music is what they use to sell advertising for cars and washing liquid. Music is the loss leader. They don't give a shit about the audience's musical taste, the audience is just there to be sold to the advertisers.

for a top-dollar commercial for Neve chsnnel strips.

without a top-dollar commercial for Neve channel strips.

Just to repeat the brand guff to advertisers on Global's own website:

XFM listeners are engaged, eclectic and influential.

As a community, they??re loyal and enthusiastic. As music fans, they??re passionate and supportive. And as an audience, they??re exactly what advertisers crave. They go to gigs, live events and club nights, they have taste when it comes to music culture, cinema, video, gaming and exhibition, and they??re the kind of people who help form opinions across the world of music and entertainment. Put simply, they??re huge consumers and tastemakers. And that means XFM offers huge opportunities.

Slightly favoured by men at 63% compared to women at 37% - one thing is guaranteed, XFM is loved right across the UK.

Where does that say its a station for men? It fact it seems to emphasis its universally although slightly favoured by men.

So don't let Global's new branding get in the way of historical revisionism...

I loved XFM, Tim and Jim but Clint Boon has always been my favourite show. It'll be a right load of old shit now, full of Babyshambles and Coldplay. It will be like rewinding to the 90's with that line up, to be honest, I hope it falls on it's arse.

Will they change the music they play? It's mostly stuff like Muse, Libertines, Killers, Kings of Leon etc isn't it.

What gets dropped and picked up instead.

I should imagine it becomes more mainstream- the more modern end of the stuff that Absolute plays, which is rock, a bit of indie but spanning longer time frame than xfm which (apart from the x list and similar shows) tended to stick to more recent releases.

I hope they still take chances and I hope that the non celeb djs they use are still music focused or else the station will be unrecognisable.

Chris fucking Moyles!

I was hoping he'd been permanently mislaid.

Marsha, I reckon all of those will still be played. I suspect the play list may shrink to 'recognisable' and established acts so as not to put off all these new men they are hoping to attract!

I can't imagine they will be playing many new or unsigned bands unless they have already been hyped up. I wonder how many solo females and female-fronted bands will appear on the playlist....

A very sad thread to read, for many reasons

Yes I think so too Mewkins.

I bet the males that listen to it now don't want Moyles or fewer new indie bands either. We all listened for a reason.

So annoying. Tg for 6 Music.

I bloody hate Chris Moyles - what a cock. I'm going to have to change my listening habits, grrrr.

It's sad about XFM.

As for the replacement, it sounds dire - I wouldn't listen to any of the presenters in that line up, in fact I would actively avoid them (except Ricky Wilson).

I guess there are lots of commerical products out there aimed at women as opposed to men, but I can't think of any radio stations or TV channels that are? Except shopping channels.

It does seem a bit unfair, but I guess all's fair in a capitalist society...?