Xfm Clears Up At Sony Awards Nominations

Indie rock radio station, Xfm, cleaned up at last night’s Sony Radio Awards, receiving six nominations, twice as many as any other radio station in the UK.

Capital-owned Xfm was nominated for the much coveted Station of The Year award, while presenter Christian O’Connell received a record 4 nominations, including Breakfast Show Of The Year, The Entertainment Award, DJ Of The Year and The Competition Award for Christian O’Connell’s Rock School. Ian Camfield was nominated for Music Broadcaster Of The Year.

The latest RAJAR figures for the 3 months to December 2004, showed Xfm to have added 4.1% to its audience weekly reach year on year to climb to 535,000. The station’s share of listening was also boosted, adding 0.3% points over the same period to 1.8% (see RAJAR Results Q4 2004: Heart And Capital Pegged Back By Rivals).

The alternative music station worked hard in 2004 to extend its listenership, running FM trials in Manchester and launching its own line of branded digital radios (see Capital To Boost Digital Radio With X-fm Branded Sets).

The merger of Capital Radio and GWR, due to take place next month, will make the nation’s largest commercial radio group. The move will follow the Office of Fair Trading’s decision not to refer the two companies’ consolidation to the Competition Commission, instead accepting undertakings by the two broadcasters to address competition concerns (see Capital Set To Merge With GWR In May).

Capital and GWR, recently announced that the name of the merged company would be GCap (see Capital And GWR Name Merged Group).

Elsewhere, suggestions of a tie-up between Chrysalis Radio and the Guardian Media Group have been quashed, with GMG stating that its radio assets are not for sale, effectively ending the possibility of a takeover bid by Chrysalis (see NewsLine).

Meanwhile, the auction of The Wireless Group (TWG), owner of talkSPORT, is being shunned by most of the key players in the radio industry, as they do not want to bid for TWG as the BBC dominates talk radio and owns the direct rival to talkSPORT, Radio Five Live (see UK Radio Companies Shun TWG Auction).

Capital Radio: 020 7766 6000 www.capitalradiogroup.com

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