Generation X: 10 years of Xfm

Wednesday morning at Harrow police station. The radio in the nick is tuned in to Xfm, where the raucous breakfast presenter, Alex Zane, is playing the latest single from indie upstarts The Twang.

In the Xfm studio in Leicester Square is Harrow's Detective Constable Andy Miller who, having successfully phoned in earlier, is the network's guest film reviewer for the day. "Allo, allo, allo," says DC Miller to the listeners, getting the most obvious gag out of the way, only to discover that Zane thinks being in the police "must be so cool", and he's not paying a compliment to Sting and co. "It's wonderful, woo-hoo!" responds the officer before punching the air and launching into his review of the new Jackie Chan film, Rush Hour 3. Xfm is the listen of choice for Harrow coppers not just on this special day but every day, confides the detective, before contemplating the day's work ahead of him: "We've got three burglars in the bin".

Making radio for the boys in blue was probably not quite what the founders of Xfm had in mind when the network first got its licence 10 years ago. Back then it was known for more of an anarchic spirit, enraging the planning authorities by daubing a giant "X" logo across the front of its headquarters, a listed building near Oxford Street.

Negotiating the past decade, Xfm has shown remarkable endurance. At times close to extinction, it has established itself on the British media landscape, being voted one of Britain's top 10 coolest brands and retaining credibility for championing cutting-edge music even after being absorbed by the giant GCap media group. It has been a platform – and a stepping stone – for an extraordinary roster of celebrity broadcasters, from Ricky Gervais and Culture Show presenter Lauren Laverne to Dermot O'Leary and Zoe Ball. Christian O'Connell has moved on to Virgin, while Russell Brand, like O'Leary, is now part of the Radio 2 schedule. Earlier this month, Xfm tragically lost Tony Wilson, a presenter on its Manchester station, which alongside its Scottish and soon-to-be-launched South Wales operations gives the network something close to nationwide output.

To outsiders, it's a station for young indie obsessives. But Alex Zane takes a broader view. "The business side of radio is so stupid – it's about trying to hit males aged 15-34. Well, I've had a woman (caller) from a laser vasectomy clinic who's 63 and she loves it. I spoke to a kid of nine yesterday who demanded I send him stickers or he wouldn't listen anymore. The listeners are so diverse."

If anyone is the face of Xfm it is Zane, 28. He has mastered the skinny jeans, One Stars and trilby look, and with his long black hair and stand-up comedy background has the self-confident presence to be as big a star as most of the bands he now mixes with. He joined the station five years ago at the behest of Gervais, whom he knew from the comedy circuit, and though he recognises Xfm's "great musical heritage", he says his own role is "to make people laugh".

Zane prefers spontaneity to scripted presentation, and works closely with his tech-specialist sidekick, "Cheeky" Pete Donaldson. Interspersed with interactive features that involve listeners as "gig pigs" and "cinema swine" and studenty humour about Brazilian waxes, he offers tickets to see CSS and plays tracks from the likes of Ian Brown, a long-standing Xfm hero, and the relative newcomer Jack Penate. "This show probably couldn't exist on any station other than Xfm," says Zane of the resultant mish-mash. "It fits very well with the Xfm brand, it's a little bit different – possibly damaged – and I quite like the idea of people tuning in and saying, 'What on earth am I listening to?'"

The 1997 launch of Xfm was inauspicious, coming the very day after Princess Diana's death sent the country into shock. Amid the national outpouring of grief, Gary Crowley said a few sympathetic words before dropping "Kick Up The Jams" by New York's MC5. Among Xfm's critics 10 years on are former devotees who say the station lacks the cutting edge it once had. They complain of hearing the same tracks from Snow Patrol that are played on Virgin or Radio 1 or Xfm's more mainstream sister station, Capital.

Mike Walsh, Xfm's head of music, says that such "core, core, hardcore" listeners are important to the station, but that it cannot afford to be too niche by slavishly follow their demands. "That would be a small tail wagging a big dog, which wouldn't be good business," he says. "But they are a good indicator, like the canary in the mine, and if something is really stinking they will let us know."

Changes have already been made to the playlist to ditch artists, such as Scissor Sisters, Jack Johnson and K T Tunstall, who were once considered intriguing to Xfm listeners but have now "crossed over and become ubiquitous, so we've parted company with them". An exception is made for Snow Patrol and certain guitar-based bands that have achieved mainstream success only after slogging their way around the indie live circuit.

Since becoming part of a major PLC, Xfm has "dramatically changed the way it is delivered", says Walsh. He wants to say that the service has become more professional, but settles for "slicker" so as not to offend Xfm's pioneers.

The station's attempts to stand out have been affected in recent years by the widespread popularity of guitar-based music, and Xfm has found itself competing with the vast resources of Radio 1 to be acknowledged as the network that uncovers the key new bands. Marsh points out that there are more kudos in attending a Razorlight gig in a London pub (sponsored by Xfm as part of a series of shows to mark the 10th anniversary) than attending one of Radio 1's mass gatherings.

Adam Uytman, who joined Xfm London as head of programming at the start of the year after a successful period at Kerrang! Radio, admits it is a "difficult balancing", building the audience without diluting credibility. But he says "it's time for Xfm to become a lot bigger than it has been".

An international strategy sees links being developed with key stations abroad, notably Indie 103 in Los Angeles, Motor FM in Berlin and Triple J in Sydney. These connections will help spread the Xfm brand globally and will allow for the exchange of content with cities that have vibrant indie music scenes.

The man with possibly the best job at London Xfm is Chris Denman, a producer who not only gets to make live music sessions with bands almost every day of the week (341 were produced last year), but invariably gets to go drinking with them in Soho afterwards. On the walls of the recording studio, which smells suspiciously (or, for a rock station, should that be reassuringly?) of smoke, are thank-you messages and cartoon drawings from bands including The Maccabees and The Pistolas; Zane jokes that Denman has drawn them himself. It was here that the producer worked last year with Pete Doherty. "He was really bad, all over the shop," he says, recalling how he managed to dissuade the troubled singer from spraying champagne around the studio.

Not that the station is averse to a bit of rocky rowdyism. Dressed in a Motörhead T-shirt to which, one suspects, he is fairly attached, Ian Campfield, host of both drivetime and the station's Rock Show, has a better perspective than most on the changing face of Xfm. Still only 29, he has been with the network for the full decade of its licensed existence, and takes a pragmatic view of the changes in its business model.

At its outset, he says, the station was not concerned with profit, merely with having a musical mission. "They were music fans who were frustrated that they couldn't hear their type of music on the radio. Money-making was a dirty word. The whole idea was that they were providing a music service on the radio that wasn't being catered for anywhere else."

Such romanticism was unsustainable, Campfield believes. "The original ethos was great for a time, but had it stayed the same it would be dead. Xfm has to exist as part of the radio industry."

It was Sammy Jacob who set up the original forerunner pirate station, Q102, in his mother's house in Clapton, east London, at the end of the Eighties. It attracted the interest of The Cure's singer, Robert Smith, and manager, Chris Parry, who were frustrated at the lack of anything resembling the college radio that they admired in America. Parry offered Jacob space in the offices of Fiction Records at 97 Charlotte Street, and between 1992 and 1997 Xfm built its fledgling reputation, playing on very limited restricted monthly licences to north London; they were repeatedly turned down for a full licence.

When the difficult 1 September 1997 launch finally happened, the Britpop explosion that the Xfm founders had long seen coming was already past its peak, and by the following summer the founders sold. When Capital arrived, Sammy Jacob walked out.

Campfield says that for Xfm to attract the bigger audience that its advertisers want he has to play more mainstream music in daytime. He is aware that "there is a notion among our detractors that the station has become more watered-down" but he says this trade-off allows the station to take more risks with the evening schedule.

The reputation he has gained through the Rock Show has nurtured friendships with the likes of Henry Rollins, The Cult's Ian Astbury and, of course, Lemmy, whom he hangs out with both in London and LA. "Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden sits around with shorts and a rucksack on, which is not at all what you see on stage. But Lemmy will be there with the Jack Daniels, the ice clinking in the glass and the bottle at hand ready for a refill. You have to let him do the pouring."

The station's most noted musical talent-spotter is John Kennedy, who hosts the X-posure showcase and has discovered the likes of Jamie T and Kate Nash. He says the essence of an Xfm artist is to be found in the ethos of punk. "It's such an all-enveloping term these days, but the punk spirit is all about embracing the new and being open-minded. Xfm has to be rooted in punk."

Xfm is also definitely a blokey thing. Marsha Shandur, 30, one of the few female presenters at the network, says the gender bias is because most obsessive music fans are male. "Being a geek is more of a boy thing," she says, defining herself as a geek at the same time. "No one in my family except me listened to music – I was known as 'the little moron'."

But Xfm's geeks find it easier to stay in touch these days, with DAB radio and satellite television giving it close to nationwide penetration. When it launches on FM in Cardiff in November, Nick Davidson, the Xfm managing director, believes it will have the key indie music centres of London, Manchester, Glasgow and South Wales covered off.

Alongside Kennedy, Davidson credits the former Inspiral Carpets organ player Clint Boon (Manchester), Jim Gellatly (Scotland) and Colin Francies (South Wales) as the key tastemakers in their respective regions. He said there was a "paradox" in a station known for its independent attitude being owned by a media giant. But he said the benefit was a £4m investment in the brand.

In the Rajar audience figures issued last Thursday, GCap was rocked by Capital's dreadful results, which brought down the whole company's share price, a worrying sign for the future of Xfm. Across the country, the indie music station managed to increase its reach to 1.19 million (though this remains less than its rockier rival, Kerrang!!). Xfm's Manchester operation performed particularly well.

A decade on, despite celebrity presenters, safer daytime scheduling, a long-standing reputation for cool and a deep affection from the bands themselves, Xfm remains a niche listen. And yet, when a photograph emerged of Prince Harry's room at school, there on the wall was a poster for Xfm. Eton College and Harrow police station: you don't get much more Establishment than that. This station for music geeks is a broader church than you think.

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