Changes in Phantom

ZENER

Quote:
No, that sounds more like the plans for Country 106.8 !!!

Fact is that there is a demand for that music format because it's not well supported in Ireland. The likes of TTTR proved that some years back.

The truth about commercial radio is that it costs money to run - this money comes from advertisers/sponsors who have a target audience. More likely than not this target audience will not be spotty teenagers (unless they are selling Oxy 10!!!) with little disposable income. So ultimately the format Phantom adopts will be goverend by the financial people involved with the station in order to sell ad space. Anyone who disagrees with this is fooling themselves.

Tinky

polarbelly

Originally posted by tinky
Quote:
No, that sounds more like the plans for Country 106.8 !!!

Fact is that there is a demand for that music format because it's not well supported in Ireland. The likes of TTTR proved that some years back.

The truth about commercial radio is that it costs money to run - this money comes from advertisers/sponsors who have a target audience. More likely than not this target audience will not be spotty teenagers (unless they are selling Oxy 10!!!) with little disposable income. So ultimately the format Phantom adopts will be goverend by the financial people involved with the station in order to sell ad space. Anyone who disagrees with this is fooling themselves.

Tinky

ball wax....

phantom are going for a specialist license anyhow... catering for a special audience. if they were to change their path now, they'd lose any hope of getting the license in the first place and if they did afterwards they could face having their license taken away from them

magpie

Pearl.. have you considered putting some woolie elbow patches on the catsuit?

ZENER

Quote:
phantom are going for a specialist license anyhow... catering for a special audience. if they were to change their path now, they'd lose any hope of getting the license in the first place and if they did afterwards they could face having their license taken away from them


You mean like Today FM ?

Business is business . . when the chips are down we will see !!

Of course if Phantom are determined to obtain a licence to broadcast - and the best of luck with that - they need to stick to the guidelines as layed out by the IRTC with regards the technical issues while they have a temporary licence. Failure to adhere will see them go back to their pirate roots.

At this stage phone calls of the wrong type to the commision will not do them any favours !

Tinky

BrianD

Well technical issues are the least of our worries. Phantom has always had a very high technical standard in terms of the equipment used etc. and we continue to do so. OK, in the past we may not have had extensive coverage but that was more due to low powered transmitters as opposed to anything else.

The challenge for a niche station is to keep its costs down. If it can't it will need more revenue and ultimately to get that extra revenue it will start moving towards the centre.

ZENER

Quote:
Well technical issues are the least of our worries.

I would disagree with you there. The IRTC take a dim view of broadcasters who fail to keep rigs and equipment in spec and publish strict conditions to new licencees.

It's nice to see someone here being realistic about the financial end of running a radio station by the way.

Tinky

Achille

only change i've noticed in Phantom is that new quilted toilet roll.

mmm, smoooth.

SimonMaher

Hello all,

Ive kept out of this discussion for the past few days and have really enjoyed it I must say. Good points, argued eloquently on all sides. Keep it up please.

However, I have to take issue with Twinky at a number of the comments he has made.

First of all Tinky, I would ask you, if engaged in a debate such as this to pin your particular colours to the mast so to speak, and reveal your particular vested interest in Phantoms temporary licence stituation and your broadcasting involvement. Ill leave that one up to you.

The selective use of a quote from Brian D's post was disingenuous at best. You know just as well as anyone that he was stating that Phantoms Technical operation has always been to a high standard, and continues to be so. In terms of technical compliance, Phantom is at the same level as any other licenced station.

You seem convinced that Phantom (if given a full licence) will somehow change to fit the requirements of advertisers. Phantom has always been pitched at as broad an audience as possible within our chosen niche. For Phantom to move away from that would be both broadcasting and financial suicide. The basis of financial success for specialist stations such as Phantom is to absolutely focus on serving that niche, keeping its cost base low and not deviating from that focused path. If a station the size of Phantom was to choose to attack a larger, established player like FM104 or 98FM it would be bankrupted in a week. So, in essence, the only way that Phantom will work is by sticking to its speciality. And thats exactly what it will do, and it is from that market that Phantom will derive its income.

Just feel these clarifications were needed. If you need any further information Tinky then please don't hesitate to contact me via PM or Email.

Carry on

Regards,

Pete Reed
Phantom FM
reed@phantomfm.com

ZENER

Quote:
The challenge for a niche station is to keep its costs down. If it can't it will need more revenue and ultimately to get that extra revenue it will start moving towards the centre.

Quote:
So, in essence, the only way that Phantom will work is by sticking to its speciality. And thats exactly what it will do, and it is from that market that Phantom will derive its income.


Spot the difference anyone ???

SimonMaher

Tinky,

Selective use of context again. Nice bit of ignoring on the awkward points, very impressive.

The challenge of niche broadcasters is to keep costs down yes. Phantom will keep its costs down in order to survive. Thats what the posting says. Others have moved towards the centre because they have failed to do that. Others have kept their costs down and thrived. Can you see into the future now?

Regards,

Pete Reed
Phantom FM

magpie

Speaking of equipment, you've got me curious now....

What set up do you use at Phantom? do you have decks/cd decks, or do you run everything from mp3?

Also, do you keep copies of all your programming, and if so in what format?

JackD

Speaking of equipment, you've got me curious now....

Me too. Your signal is very strong here in Meath what sort of TX, Antenna and height have you got ?

SimonMaher

Originally posted by JackD
Me too. Your signal is very strong here in Meath what sort of TX, Antenna and height have you got ?

Will get back to you on the transmission bit later on. Just have to get the science bit from our engineering boffins!

In terms of studio, the programming in the live hours is played mainly from CD, with promotions, voiceovers etc played from MiniDisc. Turntable and cassette output etc is also available but infrequently used. Overnight programming uses a computer playout system with music files etc stored as WAV files. Audio is then smoothed and processed before being sent out on air.

All of the stations output has to be recorded for the BCI and made available to them on request. Our programming is recorded on to long play 300 minute video tapes (giving us 10 hours between changes).

Visits can be arranged.*

Regards,

Pete Reed
Phantom FM
reed@phantomfm.com






* biscuits will be required to gain entry. Plain biscuits are not considered adequate.

ZENER

To BrianD & Pete Reed:

Having looked back over the posts I replied to I don't believe I have taken anything out of context.

BrianD made 2 points in his post on 3rd Nov. The first point I criticized is his attitude towards technical compliance with the license. The truth is Phantom was a pirate station. Technical compliance would be to turn off the TX and apply for the license before broadcasting so the "high standard" you claim to have adopted is irrelevant and unsubstantiated .

His second point I applauded. He appears to have a realistic view of the commercial side of broadcasting.

I accept your stance of staying away to let the debate continue, but I must question the intelligence/attitude of some of your "listeners". The narrow mindedness of the replies seems to be at odds with the opinions of BrianD. Why not interject sooner and comment on the route the discussion was taking - or did you really expect to just sit back and soak up the praise !!

The comment by polarbelly about the specialist audience is a fair one and I believe my reply about TodayFM was relevant as they changed their format shortly after coming on air due to financial pressures from advertisers ! No "out of context" there !

With regard to the pinning my colours comment, was this meant to berate me as a flamer in this thread ? I joined a discussion group and am entitled to my point of view. The thread was turning into a back slapping excercise with no real objectiveness in the comments and I believe I introduced a touch of reality to the proceedings.

I have explained above that I did not selectively quote BrianD and take it out of context, I replied to both his points in the post. I am not "convinced" of anything about Phantom, having been a part of the pirate scene in the early 80's and being a avid follower of all things radio I think my point was a valid one. Commercial radio costs money, please don't tell me you are in it to make everyone but yourself happy. You promote a warm fuzzy feeling about the station and thats great listener loyalty is obviously very important, but your listeners appear oblivious to reality.

If memory serves me right FM104 was originally called Rock104 or something similar and promised to do what you do, again the precious JNLR figures, which all advertisers pay attention to, dictated that they were going in the wrong direction and they changed and became the most listened to station in Dublin. The fact is, whether you like it or not you are competing with them and 98FM for advertising revenue and time will tell how successful you are.

In the meantime I wish you every success in your application for a license.

Tinky

BrianD

Tinky, I may have misunderstood when you spoke of technical issues I assumed that you were referring to the actual technology of broadcasting - transmitters, processors, etc. All our equipment is up to spec and well maintained so as I said it is not an issue for Phantom now or in the past.

I din't fully understand what you mean by:

Technical compliance would be to turn off the TX and apply for the license before broadcasting so the "high standard" you claim to have adopted is irrelevant and unsubstantiated

There was no transmitter on air before we started this particular project nor was there any on air for some months prior to Oct 18.

In reality most of the compliance and standards here are monitored by ComReg while the BCI look after the content end of operations. This is where the real challenge of broadcasting is - content and the commercials. All our content is logged (on VHS) as per BCI regulations

Radio is a low cost medium and a station that both sounds good and complies with technical standards can be put together relatively cheaply.

It wouldn't be fair to compare what Phantom does with the short lived Rock 104 format. It is difficult to explain but in essence the ROck 104 music policy and philospohy was very different to what Phantom has done in the past and is now doing. Their format was largely attracting a male listener and was a big turn off to many large advertisers. At the same time Rock 104 had big overheads in the form of staff, premises, advertising, news programming etc. on the same scale as their competitors at 98FM who were successfully pulling in 20-44 year females that the advertisers love. Had Rock 104 had a smaller cost base they could have stuck with the format longer.

We will be competing with all other radio stations for a share of the advertising cake but we will not be competing directly against them. We are serving a niche that is not well served by other stations in the market. In recent years, the media has been fragmenting with more media serving small audiences (look how many variants there are of MTV compared with the single MTV Europe that started 15 years ago). Therefore advertisers have to buy accross a range of media to reach the total audience. Phantom will get a slice of that advertising in proportion to it's market share but it can not operate like the likes of 98 and 104. We must have low costs.

polarbelly

Originally posted by tinky
The fact is, whether you like it or not you are competing with them and 98FM for advertising revenue and time will tell how successful you are.

i'd have to disagree with you there.... the overall market for radio listeners is a broad one. phantom fm would be/are aiming at specific segment of this market (ie. those who listen to indie/alternative/rock music) this market is not catered for by 98fm or fm104 (with the exception of the rock show on sunday evenings) and therefore it allows a niche market for advertisers that cannot be found on the more mainstream stations.

this is good for advertisers for two reasons...
1) they'll get their message direct to their target market (ie. indie/alternative/rock music listeners within whatever age group, i dont have phantoms listeners survey details) ... there's no point for a company to advertise on one of the larger stations if their target market isnt being covered

2) because phantom wont be appealling to as many people as fm104 and 98fm etc costs to advertise on their station will be much less.

an advertiser will come out with maximum exposure for their cash... everyone in marketing's/advertising's aim

so basically i reckon that ph wont be competing with these radio stations for advertising revenue. however, of course only time will tell how successful phantom end up

just to say i recall reading an article in the times? independent? about phantom fm which said they estimated their listener base to be approx 30,000 people. obviously because it was a pirate station at the time they couldnt be involved in the JNLR but if their estimates were accurate it could be a very very lucrative place for businesses to advertise

BrianD

Anyway, as I said the technical issues are largely irrelevant. I can never understand why large sections of license applications are filled with technical specifications and lists of equipment. Minimum standards exist and are enforced.

Content is king and it would be great if we could back onto the subject of programming ...

magpie

Brian Content is king and it would be great if we could back onto the subject of programming

I think you badly need a New Wave show.

ZENER

Polarbelly:

I accept and to a large extent agree with most if not all the points you make in your post. The one thing that cannot be disputed is the strong support that Phantom have gathered around them. This is positive and bodes well for their success in the future. Content IS king . . no doubt about it !!

I disagree with your point about Phantom not being in competition with the big guns for advertisers. Most companies have advertising budgets and the media compete with each other for a share of that budget therefore Phantom are in competition with these stations.

Quote:
There was no transmitter on air before we started this particular project nor was there any on air for some months prior to Oct 18.

Not sure about the meaning of this maybe you can clarify it. Phantom, I think, broadcast on 91.6 until the commission requested they shut down, is that not correct ?

Quote:
98FM who were successfully pulling in 20-44 year females

Mmm . . .must send in a demo tape !!

Anyway guys it's been interesting debating with you and I wish you every success for the future and heres hoping the business plan is successful. I have an assignment to prepare before Nov 9th so I'd better get on with it, maybe I'll drop back in afterwards.

Tinky

magpie

...oh, and are garibaldi biscuits acceptable?

Rockiemalt

Originally posted by tinky

I disagree with your point about Phantom not being in competition with the big guns for advertisers. Most companies have advertising budgets and the media compete with each other for a share of that budget therefore Phantom are in competition with these stations.

]

I disagree totally with Tinky

Other radio statio's have ad's for stuff like dunnes stores, car shops, breakfasty cereals,that kinda thing. I could never see Phantom competing for ad's like this so therefore i think they aren't in competion with mainstream stations like 104 & 98.

Like wise bands are not going to advertise on daytime programming on fm 104, spin or 98, they would be targetting the wrong audience and are not going to waste their money there.

Also, people who advertise on phantom get it much cheaper than they would on more mainstream stations due to (i think) that the audience is much smaller on phantom and so they are targetting less people. but i think the people who hear are morelikely to indulge in these products as the stuff is aimed at the audience more so...


As for programming on Phantom i think its great. Ok, there has been changes but thats i think thatss so the people who had slots during the week can all have shows at the weekend. to quote pete read in a recent interview i did with him 'this is about people learning' (in relation to phantom fm) and i think theres very few stations that can say that and still be maintaining the quality shows phantom makes. I hope this continues even WHEN phantom get a full time licence, and i think this should help them when appling for a licence because they are teraching people about radio which is a great thing!

ZENER

Quote:

...oh, and are garibaldi biscuits acceptable?


absolutely not . . Vicount (orange) minimum acceptable !!:D

Quote:
I disagree totally with Tinky

Good on ya !!

Tinky

SimonMaher

Vicount (orange) minimum acceptable !!

Ah jaysus...Viscount Orange...My gran used to always have them in the house. Mingin.

Jaffa Cakes or McVitties Chocolate Chip Masterpieces please.

Regards,

Pete Reed
Phantom FM
reed@phantomfm.com

magpie

McVitties Chocolate Chip Masterpieces please

You greedy bastard!

In my day it was ginger nuts, custards creams or garibaldi. And that were luxury.

polarbelly

Originally posted by tinky
I disagree with your point about Phantom not being in competition with the big guns for advertisers. Most companies have advertising budgets and the media compete with each other for a share of that budget therefore Phantom are in competition with these stations.

just one wee point on it...

anyone that advertises will try to locate their target market before spending their small/large budget on ads
(if they dont locate their target market their ads are doomed to fail, unless they get very very lucky, and they will be wasting their advertising budget)

as i said before i dont know what phantom's listener spread is... ages, sex, demographics etc...

but

i reckon their listener base is alot different to that of the mainstream stations. ergo vis-a-vis concordantly (apologies too much matrix related advertising in the air these days) due to different target markets advertisers will view them differently.

however,

i must concede that phantom are competing against these radio stations if you count radio listeners as one target market


pete, jaffa cakes are cakes... hence the name:D

Achille

jaffa cakes are ****.
plain and simple.

they're a sorry excuse for either a buscuit or a cake.

Ger Roe

Jaffa cakes are quite simply of vital importance to the entire Phantom project.

For many years now they have been the staple refreshment (combined with whatever coffee is going cheap at the time) at the regular management team meetings. Indeed many meetings have included discussion on the merits of the original Jaffa cake versus the various 'own brand' variations (including the lemon flavour limited edition).

If it wasn't for Jaffa cakes we wouldn't have kept going for so long as they have held the team together with a bond as strong as whatever they use to glue the orangey bit to the sponge.

Ger Roe.

magpie

whatever they use to glue the orangey bit to the sponge

They use gelatin extracted by boiling down horses hooves....

mmm, gelatin.

Creature

My god you people are totally insane! What about choccie Digestives?!? Or the holy grail that is Mint Viscounts?

Aidan Lynch

Yes, Creature, we are totally insane, some of us more so than others.

Would it be disturbing for you to hear how we manufactured the ultimate jaffa cake by taking the chocolate and orangey bit from the Jacob's one and sticking it to the superior spongey bit of the McVities one? It was something marvellous to behold.

We very nearly disbanded the Phantom organisation that evening, knowing that we would never, ever, top that particular jaffa cake experience.

Sorry, I've said too much. Must go now.

P.