Good piece Ian. Unfortunately, given that it will be commercially driven, Phantom will almost certainly be Tom Dunne light. If you don't have the listeners, you are dead as a business so I expect that The Frames, Artics etc etc will be in heavy rotation. The one redemption will be outside of the 8 to 6pm timeframes where they can be seriously adventurous. I heard Dave Fanning playing Sugar on RTE1 the other day, mad eh? I felt like I should be sucking a Werther's Original and smelling faintly of piss....

It's a good read alright, but let's see what the station plans to do and play.

good article, well written, however... there's not much to discuss is there? its basically a "state of play" update, y'know. the follow up article before christmas will be the interesting one i'd say...

I hear wind of Leagues getting his own show somewhere - not on Phantom or Today Fm though. hmmmmm...i wonder where?

Interesting piece alright. As Ive said before, only time will tell if we live up to expectations. Personally I dont see a problem with Phantom playing popular bands that even the author of the piece likes, so long as they are mixed up with lesser known acts. Yep, sure there is more crossover now and yep, you might get to hear Jeff Buckley played on the radio, sandwiched between James Blunt and Shayne Ward but the idea with Phantom is that you will get to hear the good stuff a lot more! The philosophy of Phantom has always been and will continue to be, that you may not like every song we play, but you will love one in three. Impossible to please all the people all the time and the whole "blah blah sold out to the man etc" will inevitably come out but have a little faith and see what happens. I await the follow up before Christmas with interest! In the meantime, roll on October 31st on 105.2. Pete

Follow up? I never commited to writing no follow up, I've got things to do (I had more time on my hands when I wrote the first draft of that op-ed over 18 f**kING MONTHS AGO!!! That zed fm thing just ran and ran). Anyway, honestly best of luck when you go on the air Pete.