Following the launch of their TV channel last month, NME have announced plans to launch a radio station to be called, yes, you guessed it, NME Radio. Hurrah.
The new station will be "an essential listen for any fan of the indie genre", which obviously puts them into Xfm territory, which is possibly why the press release stresses that this service will be a "presenter-driven" service, a reference to the fact daytime and overnight Xfm now operates an automated presenter-free format. The Xfm links are also obvious in the partners NME owners IPC have chosen for their radio station - DX Media, the company headed up by that Sammy Jacob fella who played a key role in setting up Xfm back in its 'not part of GCap' days.
Commenting on the radio plans, NME Publishing Director Paul Cheal told CMU: "For NME, it's the next logical step. With an average readership of 499,000 each week and 1.6m unique users on NME.COM every month, the NME brand already has fantastic reach amongst an audience who are notoriously difficult to target. Launching a radio service which allows that audience to hear NME recommended artists first, as well as the very best in indie music, is very exciting for our readers, users and of course our advertisers. Partnering with DX Media and the founder of Xfm - Sammy Jacob, and housing the operation here [inhouse], illustrates just how seriously NME is taking this venture and how important a platform we see NME Radio becoming".
Jacob added: "'Indie' has become the mainstream although it might be fairer to say the mainstream has become indie, and in the process - like so many other credible genres - has marginalised the very foundations upon which it was built. NME Radio will re-address the balance - giving much needed exposure to the great new acts that tend to get ignored by traditional broadcast media thereby making radio more relevant in an increasingly fragmented market".
NME Radio will launch in mid-2008 via various digital radio platforms and also online via NME.com. Perhaps they should go for the Plymouth FM licence too - I'm not sure anyone else will.