What next for Phantom?

joey D

There seems to be a lot of activity in the radioscape of Dublin these days. I'm referring to the fact that two new stations will be starting up fairly soon, Spin FM for the yoof market and Newstalk for the boring fart market. The Country station which pipped Phantom to a license seems to be in a spot of bother with low listener figures, one wonders how much longer it can last. Hot Press have four Today FM DJ's plastered on their current issue cover for some reason. Many of the commercial stations huff and puff about stunning new JNLR statistics. Local radio around Dublin (Kildare, Wicklow, Carlow, Meath) seems to be entering an interesting phase of more specific broadcast license areas and special interest stations.
So with all this activity going on where does Phantom lie in the bigger scheme of things? If Phantom was to actually get a license does anyone think that it would detract from the station's status as the only alternative, underground if you will, station? In other words, is the spirit of Phantom kept alive by its pirate staus? Would it disintegrate if the station had to fulfil criteria demanded by a commercial license? Most successful license applicants seem to have major financial backers behind it, more often than not these backers are media conglomerates - does anyone think Phantom's uniqueness would be compromised by this kind of situation? Would people still listen to Phantom if there were annoying Eircom ads every half hour and pointless traffic updates from AA Vodafone Eircell Roadwatch Thing? These are all just questions that came to me as I sat in my kitchen this morning eating my toast and Roses Lime maramalade, drinking my tea and looking out the window at my dog chasing birds around the garden.

Gar_ptc

well;it doesnt matter about how it's percieved;

being underground as a fashion?

nothing to do with fashion really...

but the other questions are valid...or is that the other fears are valid?

how compromise would phantom be as a legitimate radio station?

but look at the up-side;

more money;dj's get paid; they could probably buy more music
thus exposing us to a broader range of music - hence the quality of music on phantom would improve;

we'd have a bigger scene; i think;i think it 'd be more about more bands being exposed and people might start going to gigs of small bands;instead of waiting for them to get famous; you know?

but the other fears you expressed are also rather....worrisome

o sleep

i always thought there were some very big barriers to phantom ever getting a licence: one of which must surely be the (allegedly) corrupt nature of IRTC. apparently it's not what sort of station you have, but rather who (in fianna fail) you know. just an idea: but maybe phantom should try and win over some influential figures in the government. perhaps tom kitt would be one easily won over (what with the 'scandal' of getting david kitt extra airplay on RTE).

they are some interesting points raised by joey. perhaps someone at phantom could enlighten us?

Tom E Brown

Hi Joey, O Sleep

I can understand your concerns but I think they come from a fear of change, rather than any substantial facts. Take a look at our background for example:

To give you the forum in which to discuss this issue, its taken literally hundreds of thousands of man (and women) hours, all of which was unpaid (3 years broadcasting 24 hours a day and that’s just the on air stuff ignoring every one behind the scenes). For you to be able to tune in and listen to Phantom has cost the station a huge amount of money and time, and in many cases money that came from our own pockets. I think we've all paid our dues to the Dublin underground scene many times over.

Unfortunately people are starting to forget that we do the same job as every Dublin City commercial radio station; except that we don’t have even 1% of their budgets. FM 104 can spend up to 1 million pounds on advertising and promotion, we only just make enough money to cover our costs and put a little aside in case of emergencies.

Would we change by having access to the same sort of finances as the legal stations? Of course we would; we would change for the better, and personally I can’t wait for it to happen.

By having financial backing we'd be able to do things like record exclusive sessions from bands like the strokes in our own studios, stage gigs at the point, and have our own stage at the witnness festival and broadcast it live. If that’s selling out tell me where to sign....Phantom has the ability to grow, and we should be allowed to do so. To not want us to grow because your worried about not liking us anymore isn’t fair to any of the people who have worked so hard and so long to make this station as respectable as it is.

When something gets as big as Phantom has it cant stay underground for ever, it can only grow by moving to a different place; in this case a fully commercial alternative radio station. You ask any successful band, they'll laughingly tell you about the good old days of having no money or respect and playing gigs to only 50 people and how much fun it was, but would they go back there...of course they wouldn’t. To put them down about it just shows extreme jealousy of what they have managed to accomplish.

There will always be people who complain about change, and even more worryingly people who complain about other people becoming more successful than they will. Id like to think that people don’t just listen to us because we're broadcasting illegally, but because they like the music we play, and that weather we have a licence or not we are still the same people doing the same job.

We deserve a licence, and a chance to grow into what we can become. Don’t begrudge us that, we really have earned the right to it. Questioning whether we would be as good with a licence is questioning our integrity as people.

*Tom E Brown climbs down of his soapbox*

Gar_ptc

yeah;that's what one would hope and expect from phantom.

i don't think that anyone who listens to phantomfm would ever oppose them getting a license- that is ,if they had a logical reason.

joey D

er... okay Tom, didn't mean to upset you but I think you misinterpreted what I was saying. I certainly wouldn't begrudge a radio license to Phantom, in fact I would wholeheartedly do anything I could to ensure it - that's why myself and Keith put so much into our weekly live comedy programme for Phantom which is called Thursday Challenge. I wholly understand and appreciate the amount of effort and work, volunatry work to boot, that has gone into making Phantom what it is today. I know the people behind Phantom do the same job as the commercial station personnel, only with vastly inferior funds, and that's why I admire Phantom so much, that's why I listen to it, that's why I wanted to become involved in it, that's why I believe it's necessary to generate some sort of reasonable debate about the future of the station if and when it gets a license. That's why I occasionally check the message board, which I believe is a great forum for discussions and not just plugs for gigs. Fear of change? You have the wrong guy officer, I'm all for it.

"Questioning whether we would be as good with a licence is questioning our integrity as people."
That's a bit over-sensitive don't you think? It's wrong to adopt a seige mentality and think that open, honest debate is actually some sort of misguided, unappreciative begrudgery. There's a few other startling things you've said but my boss is beginning to notice that I'm not actually working on that excel spreadsheet so I gotta go.

o sleep

i would also be all for phantom getting the licence, i just thought joey brought up some very good points. the thing which would worry me, though, would be the case of xfm in london, which has apparently gone down the tubes since it got its licence.

GerK

Well there is little doubt that the evolution of Phantom would involve a certain commercialisation of the station and its programing. This is to be expected, for an answer to your question try listening to the myriad Alt Rock stations broadcast from the US and around the world. They have more adds, usually cheezier adds, but they play the same quality music. I for one think the guys and gals at Phantom deserve to get paid.
I also think the benifits would substantially outweigh any ill effects, not least in that I assume they would be able to broadcast nationally? Add to that the posibilities mentioned by Tom and you have a total no brainer!

Good luck Phantom in any future applications you make, I fear you will need it.

Wamphyri

Appreciate your passion Tom but I have to agree that you may have picked Joey up wrong. He wasn't critising only discussing

On the original post
Phantom will change. Some of it may not be for the better but most of it will. Commercial status and a need for return on investment do influence any business.

The dj's, myself included, really do care about the music and that is what makes Phantom so good. That will never change. Phantom will continue to do what it does only bigger and better and hopefully convert a few non beleivers along the way.

see you on the 11th

PS what ever happened to the Phantom bus???

SimonMaher

Hello all,

Good points made by young Joey and others there. And a very valid set of questions too, although I can see where our Tom E Brown was coming from too. Its a regular arrow slung our direction "If youse got a licence you would be selling out" etc....

But for now, I must sleep and will give my tuppence worth tomorrow. Today, a very unfit man called Pete ran around a field chasing a ball for two hours and now he is feeling the effects!

Talk then,

Pete Reed
Phantom FM

p-t saviour

if phantom got a licence, would all the bands (and i mean ALL) who get played get paid royalties from the station?
money for my music, life would be sweet...

SimonMaher

Afternoon all,

Right, just to deal with a few points.

Joey Good points made just no idea why you didnt make any of them to us in real life! The whole "if Phantom had a licence it would sell out etc" discussion has cropped up many times on this board. Tom E Brown explained very well the great things we could do if we had a licence and indeed a budget to do things. Proper studio facilities for live bands, outside broadcasts, paying people for their time and effort are just some of the benefits.

As for whether the station would disintegrate if it had the responsibilities of a licence, well I think you should be able to give your own judgement on that one as you are part of it. In my humble opinion, it would get better, noticeably so. If we were in a position where we could pay a full time staff to organise and manage the stations operations then the potential is huge. And our success or failure would be in our own hands, which is all we ask for.

Phantoms uniqueness would only be compromised if we allowed it to be, and I cant see why we would. Wouldnt make any sense from either a radio or business point of view.

To move on, The Phantom Bus will arrive. Someday. Promise.

And on the topic of royalties, of course Phantom would pay royalties if it had a licence. Phantom makes provision for royalty payments as it is, but the collection groups arent in a position to collect them. But also remember p-t, youre not going to make much cash from royalties on radio play on one relatively small radio station. We're talking maybe sliced pan per month money here, and even at that, cheap sliced pan.

These debates are very useful and its always good to discuss these things, but I would say that there has to be a certain amount of faith in what we are trying to do, and what we will do when we achieve it. We've been at this a long time, we've put years of work and invested our futures in it, so given the chance, we will make it work.

Time for a rasher sandwich after all this,
Regards,

Pete Reed
Phantom FM