Time to do the right thing and turn off Phantom 105.2

windowcleaner

Redundancies and restructuring signal the end of the line for the ill-fated Dublin music station

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord/2014/02/17/time-to-do-the-right-thing-and-turn-off-phantom-105-2/

Pretty much nails it

ghostdancer

spot on. perfectly articulates my feelings on Phantom, so much so that I wonder if Jim has been reading my posts on here :pac:

Declan A Walsh

A thought-provoking and excellent article from Jim Carroll. I have made some of the points that he raised but not as eloquently as him. I would agree with a lot of what he said, particularly on the core issue of what the station should be about.

Junk Adele

A while ago on Phantom they seemed to be giving regular Elton John updates. When I complained by text that most Phantom listeners couldn't care less what Mr. John was up to, I was more or less told to,"Go and ****e".

BaronVon

Yep, sums it up exactly

Royaler78

There have been many nadirs over the years, the one which sticks with me is the morning they had Chico on. I turned open-mouthed to the radio. Carroll's piece hit the nail on the head & he's dead right about J&K. There were many mornings when I couldn't believe the ****e they were coming out with - ideas and thoughts that you wouldn't even utter to your friend over a pint.

The problems seem so staring-you-in-the-face obvious that it's incredible to think they haven't been addressed over the years. Surely now only a matter of time before the station ceases to exist...

former legend

It makes me very sad to say that my reaction to this news and subsequent developments has been "meh".

At the time of the previous cull, when Pure Morning ended along with others, I listened in pretty much that whole weekend because Phantom was something that I had an affinity with and it made me pretty angry that some really good DJs were getting the boot. But I realised that listenership figures were not good enough so I accepted it, but I was really sorry to see them go, it really did strike a chord with me. But still, I was optimistic/naive enough to think that things would improve.

The came Joe and Keith. OK, I stopped listening in the morning, easy enough. But then I had to unfollow Phantom on Twitter and 'unlike' them on Facebook because of the constant stream of inane sh*te that was clogging up my newsfeeds thanks to those two. "Joe and Keith's big question of the day; jam or marmalade?", FFS.

So I started to lose touch with the station. Sure, I'd flick it on every now and again, I thought Claire Beck's show on Sunday mornings was very good, Richie and Richie also, and I usually listened to the Orlagh and Eamonn show on Sunday nights, but in the same way I sometimes flick on 2fm or Radio Nova, Phantom was just another station on the dial.

And then this happened. And I realised I didn't care.

Of course we could never go back to the pirate days or even the early "legit" days of Sinister Pete and Simon Maher, but the Phantom of 2014 bears absolutely no resemblance to that station and whatever it set out to do in the various relaunches failed miserably. Of course I'm sad for the individual presenters who are on the way out, Orlagh, Richie and Richie in particular, but Phantom has been a zombie for some time now and it's probably time to end it once and for all.

The last thing Dublin needs is another 98fm-style station with anodyne pop/rock and "wacky" presenters being "mad" every morning, but to be honest, it won't bother me because I won't be listening.

So thanks to the real Phantom crew for a lot of good tunes over the years; it's a shame how it ended.

Ultimate Ultan

former legend wrote: »

The last thing Dublin needs is another 98fm-style station with anodyne pop/rock and "wacky" presenters being "mad" every morning, but to be honest, it won't bother me because I won't be listening.

I think there is a bigger problem that radio is managed rigidly. There was probably some survey some time back that said that people only wanted "witty banter" in the morning, and every morning show since has followed the format. Then there is the playlist, where the idea seems to be that limiting what you plays aides the stations identity. Phantom shouldve been viewed as a different type of station, not Spin for Emos, but it wasn't, which I feel was a reason for it's current predicament.

franksm

I hope when Phantom does come back, under a different guise or different management, that it's more like the raw Phantom of the late 90s. Not afraid to play Thin Lizzy alongside Crowded House, more esoteric and eclectic than easy-pleasing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IdBtXB4wCc

This road is so unclear, today I just don't care