How does Phantom do listenership-wise?

Hi KingofFairview. Over on the radio forum there is a pretty detailed thread on the latest JNLR listenership figures including Phantom.

To summarise though, here are the numbers as they relate to Phantom. Phantoms market share is 0.7% which is the share of minutes listened and that is as low as it has ever been and its listened yesterday (sometimes called reach) figure is 15,000 or 1%. That figure is the number of people who tuned into Phantom at any point "yesterday". The 15,000 figure achieved this time around is Phantoms lowest ever.

You asked how many people used to tune in so I went back to 2009 for you. Phantoms market share in 2009 was 1.7% and its listened yesterday figure was 30,000 per day. In three years Phantoms audience has halved as has the amount of market share.

Your final question was about similar outlets and in this case the closest comparison is with Nova. Nova have 2.7% market share and 45,000 listeners per day. This was a drop on previous figures. The nearest station in terms of audience share is 4FM who have 1.1% market share and 21,000 listeners per day.

BAI.IE has a lot of the figures on a quarter by quarter basis (there are 4 sets of figures a year). Happy to answer questions here or on the other thread.

KingOfFairview wrote: »

Interesting, RA, thanks for the input! Think they can do anything to turn it around?

You're welcome. Have spent the morning working on a client presentation which includes JNLR numbers so I'm happy to contribute to this thread and the one on the Radio board.

As to whether they can do anything to turn it around, that is a question that should really be directed at the operators and owners of Phantom. Do they have the expertise or the inclination required to turn it around? Unfortunately the figures speak for themselves.

I would like to be surprised though, there is some decent talent still in there but it is those at the top who need to step up. Very interesting to compare the fortunes of Phantom with those of XFM London. The parallels are striking from a lack of understanding of musical fashions to poor marketing to a lack of grasp of niche audiences. Just my personal views though as a former listener and fan.

RadioAnalyst wrote: »

I would like to be surprised though, there is some decent talent still in there but it is those at the top who need to step up. Very interesting to compare the fortunes of Phantom with those of XFM London. The parallels are striking from a lack of understanding of musical fashions to poor marketing to a lack of grasp of niche audiences. Just my personal views though as a former listener and fan.

Unfortunately those "at the top" are directly responsible for Phantom's decline over the last couple of years IMO, so I doubt they'll make the necessary decisions to turn it around.
the bland and predictable playlists and general music policy. the increasing desire to introduce more "talk radio" and less music. copying other stations programme formats and making Phantom as formulaic and similar as the rest. putting the shows that do play anything other than bog-standard indie-rock into late timeslots, then getting rid of them altogether.
and all seemingly in the hope of attracting listeners to being in advertising money.
despite, as the JNLR figures show, they've been losing listeners over the last few years making these decisions. many people who used to listen to Phantom just don't care about listening any more, and few people are going to chose to switch from the established "wacky breakfast show" or energetic drive-time shows on TodayFM/Spin/2FM etc. to Phantom.

at this stage, it seems like its only a matter of time until Communicorp pull the plug and either sell off Phantom, or just wind it up completely.

I had always assumed that the unpopular changes at phantom over the last year or 2 resulted in many new listeners at the cost of some disgruntled long time listeners. But now it transpires that they've basically just driven away these long time listeners without attracting any new ones. How the hell do the gimps in management still have jobs?

They're basically running the station into the ground and things are only getting worse, with the latest travesty being the 'Dumb and Dumber' morning show.

I'm seldom a radio listener these days but back in the day was a committed listener of Phantom. It had quality shows and was great introduction to the weird and wonderful in respect of music. It was the first place I heard The Fall, Elliot Smith, Low etc- bands I continue to love to this day. One got the impression that the DJ's were music and radio enthusiasts rather than jobbing personalities peddling someone else's wares. There was something very insular seeming about it, and I mean that in a charming kinda way. The same just can't be said of it now.

Of course, another factor to consider is that I simply don't need radio to find 'new' music anymore. Would I be interested in a show about b-sides/out-takes by obscure 70's rock bands and accompanying back story? Possibly, but I guess that's going to be at odds with commercial aspirations. Oh well, I've fond memories and it was good while it lasted.