DJ Zane quits his Xfm show after rape joke

A radio DJ who sparked controversy by playing a song about rape live on air has quit his show.

TV projects: Alex Zane

Alex Zane, who has presented the weekday breakfast show for alternative radio station Xfm for the past two years, will make his final broadcast this Thursday.

Zane, 30, decided not to renew his contract, which ends on Friday, and will now be focusing on other projects.

Last August, Zane and two members of his team - Marc Haynes and Sunta Templeton - were suspended for a week after playing a " joke" song about rape.

They broadcast a song that Zane wrote called Code Of Love, and even though listeners described the song as "nothing bad", Xfm said it was "distasteful and likely to cause offence".

Zane later accused Xfm of "over-reacting in the extreme" and said his song had been misinterpreted.

Then, in November last year, Haynes and another co-host, "Cheeky" Pete Donaldson, were forced to leave due to budget cuts. Xfm London programme director Adam Uytman said the station just wanted the show to focus on Zane.

He said: "It was our feeling that there were just too many voices involved, and feedback from many was that it was at times too hard to follow. As such we decided to focus on Alex's personality, fur ther es tabl i shing him as the main voice."

Zane's spokesman said today: "He has done all he can at the station and given the number of projects going on he just can't commit to host the show for another year. He has built a very loyal audience and I'm sure his listeners will miss him a lot."

Zane, who co-presented Popworld on Channel 4, is understood to now be in talks with several production companies about developing a number of TV formats.

He will fly to Los Angeles straight after his last Xfm to film a new series for digital US channel G4 TV.