PIRATE RADIO: There are many ways to formulate a radio programming policy. Advertising interests, target-demographic groups and market share all enter into the equation. Phantom FM says it gets seven per cent of the Dublin listenership and wants to go legit. Brian Boyd reports.
People in suits with clipboards can advise, niche markets can lobby and figures can be broken down by gender, age and musical genre. If you're Phantom FM though, you can cut through the clutter and simply state: "If it gets played on FM104, then it doesn't get played here".
The Dublin pirate radio station, which specialises in independent/
alternative music, has an estimated listenership of 30,000 and growing. A musical sanctuary for those who are switched off by jibbering mainstream "jocks", Phantom is a broadcasting free spirit which is as irreverent towards commercial music as is it authentic in its own tastes.
Twice turned down for a radio licence, for many it's the real sound of Dublin music radio.
Its city-centre studio is cosy and informal. Massive banks of CDs decorate the walls, posters advertise past, present and future gigs and there's a congratulatory message from Podge and Rodge which reads "Keep Playing the Devil's Music". The only thing that gives away the station's illegal status is a video camera focused permanently on the front door.
Apart from the studio, there's a kitchen and a small production office. Station manager Peter Reed, who has just finished his 5 p.m.-7 p.m. slot, acknowledges that while some people might still think Phantom is based in a bedroom, it's quite a professional set-up. A long-serving pirate, Reed was first involved with the Coast and Spectrum stations before setting up Phantom five years ago.
Now, he wants to go legit. "As much as people get nostalgic about pirate stations and enjoy the sound of the traffic outside on the street while we're broadcasting, we'd like to be able to do things properly," he says.
"There are about 30 DJs on the station who work for free, we can't get advertising because we're illegal and now we have to replace our equipment. As strong supporters of the Irish music scene, we also want to be able to do remote broadcasts of interesting gigs around the city but at present we can't. We have to rely on staging club nights (The Phantasm Club at Whelan's every Thursday) so we can pay for the lights and telephone at the studio."
Phantom wants to expand, he argues, because there's a growing demand for the station's no-nonsense musical policy. Apart from their Dublin listeners, they're also picking up new fans in Australia and the US as they can be heard on the Web. And the station's own bulletin board is replete with "Oh My God, I've just discovered Phantom" messages.
Phantom's popularity coincides with changes in music listening. Although the station is for "independent/alternative" music, some of the acts they are playing, while previously marginalised, can now be found at the top of the album charts. Not that the station's DJs care about record sales, they only play it if they like it. "Musos" perhaps, but they're all knowledgeable and enthusiastic and while other mainstream DJ's fancy themselves, rather tragically, as "celebrities", these are busy keeping musical standards free from inane corporate tie-ins and semi-hysterical phone-in competitions.
"The listenership would be largely 15-35," says Reed, "and they do separate sometimes into two camps. The younger end might want to hear the latest nu-metal act while the other end are interested in hearing something from the Radiators From Space."
Being illegal, though, it's difficult to put a figure on their listenership: "I'd say we have about seven per cent of the Dublin audience, the only crude way to estimate the figures is to monitor the website for hits and to multiply by a certain figure the amount of phonecalls we get into the station commenting on the music or looking for a particular track."
Given its popularity, it's unlikely the authorities will move to close the station down, although Reed says everyone in the industry knows where their station is situated. He's still bruised by the station's last application for a licence.
'THERE was a licence going for Dublin last year, we had to be good boys and close down the station while we applied for it. It was a "special interest" licence, which suited us. The whole application process cost us about £20,000, which we raised ourselves or borrowed from the credit union because we had to come up with architect drawings and cashflow projections etc.
"We presented all this to the BCI (the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland - who took over from the IRTC) and were shortlisted but the licence went to a country music station instead."
Is legitimacy in the eyes of the BCI the right way to go for Phantom? When the similarly-styled indie British station XFm got a licence, they soon found themselves having to play Robbie Williams tracks in order to get cross-over appeal. "You'll find XFm have now pulled back from Robbie Williams and are playing the sort of music they said they would," says Reed. "There's no reason why we couldn't work. In fact we've been approached by a number of large media organisations here, who I can't name, who wanted to be part of the Phantom application but we value our independence."
Phantom's daytime scheduling would not be that far removed from what TodayFM plays from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. each night (DJ's Tom Dunne and Donal Dineen) but, says Reed, if it were made legal, in the evenings they would "push it out".
But then this is a man who frets over what response there might be if anyone at the station plays a track from the punk-pop group Blink 182: "Should we play them, should we not? We wouldn't play the Pet Shop Boys, I can tell you that for sure. If Blink 182 are played, because they're a popular chart band, you ready yourself for the cry of 'sell out'. It's a good thing though, I suppose.
"In fact, there's another radio station in Dublin, called XFm on 107.9 FM who probably regard us as 'commercial' but that's pirate radio for you."
With the BCI saying there are no more frequencies available for the Dublin area, Phantom will continue along its Jolly Rodger way. And when it's not providing the best music in the Dublin area, it'll be sourcing out young DJ talent, bringing Irish bands into the studio to do sessions, and promoting and pushing the best of local talent. In other words, what the legal and advertising-funded radio stations should be doing, but don't. Rave on Phantom.