Well, if Birmingham was the rock city that was calling out for a local version of Kerrang! Radio (which it got when OfCom advertised a city-wide licence there), then Manchester, the home of indie, was surely calling out for its own local version of London’s Xfm - and yesterday it got it, hurrah. Yep, GCap’s alternative music brand beat 18 other rivals to win the new FM licence for Manchester, meaning the city will very soon gets its own variation of the alternative station.
The win was good news for the recently merged GCap - neither of the company’s predecessors, Capital or GWR, have ever actually won a new radio licence when advertised like this one, having built their respective empires by acquiring other existing stations. The arrival of Xfm on analogue in Manchester also helps the group’s strategy to make the alternative station a national brand.
Commenting on the win, a spokesman for GCap told reporters yesterday: "What we found in Manchester was that people were saying this city is the natural home of Xfm and clearly Ofcom agreed. We're already starting to think about the programming elements of the station and looking at the talent behind."
OfCom also announced yesterday that they were awarding the new licence for Norwich to Tindle Radio's Crown FM, while a new licence for Ballymena in Northern Ireland went to Seven Towers FM, owned by a consortium including Alpha Newspaper Group and Irish News.