This was a truly terrible idea. With the new XU listener playlist, I was bombarded with the same old tunes everyday and I didn’t have the comfort of a nice friendly DJ giving me interesting news about the bands etc.

If the music played on the station is chosen by the listeners (and therefore music they have already heard) when does any new music get fed in? I may as well have listened to my ipod on shuffle for a week - the playlist would be much longer, with less repeats and no ads.

When they open up in South Wales and are set to continue with the XU policy here too. I wonder if they will be able to build the same sort of “indie” audience as in other places with XU being there from the start. Without a dedicated indie/alternative audience, selecting the tunes we are set to hear a load of pop pap for the foreseeable future.

I am now back listening to 6 music and it is pure joy!

what attracted me to xfm in the first place was its lo-key feel, there was a thriving comunity of regular listeners, i knew the djs they knew me, and it made me feel like i belonged and contributed to something good… over the years as they chase the ratings and profit its become harder and harder to feel a part of the station (afteral as listeners we are a big part of it).. the X-list was great, for an hour you got none playlist songs… but as the listener audience increased and became more mainstream so does the selection of songs… so now, you have a 6 hour x-list, controlled by people who have nothing other than mainstream tastes.

i’ll be the first to admit that the actual overall playlist is more varied than it has been recently, but thats hardly surprising…. the biggest single problem is that the station is going for a bigger audience, this big audience dosnt have the same music sensabilities as me, and they aint gonna want the same music as me… or probably anyone else that really really likes.. no LOVES their indie/alt/rock music.

it will probably work for xfm, low cost output with high earning and popularity.. but in the same way MTV went, in a few years it’ll be nothing more than a guitar pop station. maybe we’ll have an Xfm2 for the people that actually care about new music. i dont know.

i for one wont be listening to it for another day, i need personality and soul from a station i listen to, and more importantly i need to feel i belong, Djs i can engage with.. i lived with the corporate nature xfm had, accepted the adverts and rubbish that went with it… but this is one step too far… it is impossible for me to carry on listening to something i used to actually care about, so off to radio 6 i go.

cheers dan

As it happens, I’m not crazy over Tonks, Marsha or Graeme Smith, but I’d rather them than an automated system. Sucks the soul out if it.

Tom/Mark: This is where we differ. I like DJs as a concept. I love having a human voice intermingled with the music, and a talented DJ is a real boon to any radio station. Ian Camfield and Iain Baker were always two of my favourites, along with Kevin Greening and, latterly, even Richard Bacon. Getting rid of good DJs and replacing them with mediocre ones was a really bad move, but perhaps Xfm were prepping us for the day that they ditch them completely.

Good DJs are important to me - they give shape to my day as they change shifts, they make me laugh, they remind me I’m not alone even though I work on my own. My iPod can’t do that for me.

Fight the good fight but these people think they “know best”, so when it’s over grit your teeth and move over to 6Music.