Following on from reports that 20 staff are to be made redundant at Phantom FM, as part of a restructuring plan, Irish Times music critic Jim Carroll, above, has this to say:

“The problem with Phantom is that it forgot about the music. At a time when many stations are finding favour again thanks to making truly exciting music radio, Phantom plodded on without a clue. Despite the fact that it had a rake of people in its ranks down through the years who were genuine music fans and great radioheads, it persisted time and time again with putting lowest common denominator radio on during peaktime hours. The music fans got their way and their say during the evening, night-time and weekend shifts. It was if you’d two different stations, which is never a great look. Yet the station’s management persisted in making mistake after mistake after mistake when it came to programming. The nadir in Phantom’s downfall was reached with the unpalatable breakfast show pairing of Joe Donnelly and Keith Walsh, two lads who genuinely didn’t have a clue what they were doing on a music radio station.”
….
“So, goodbye, goodnight and good luck Phantom. The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland may well have rolled over and given you permission to restructure, thus negating many of the conditions of your licence in the first place, but the audience isn’t so easily fooled or convinced. They’ve departed in droves – a daily audience of just 15,000, which is half what it was four years ago when the station was supposed to be really in trouble and brought in Communicorp – and are not coming back. A truly sad state of affairs.”

Yikes.

FIGHT!

Time to do the right thing and turn off Phantom 105.2 (Jim Carroll, Irish Times)

Related: 20 staff to be let go at Dublin station Phantom FM (RTE)