Phantom FM

Phantom FM are a Dublin based radio station, originally founded in 1996 as a pirate radio station. They play generally alternative rock with a high emphasis on indigenous artists.

Until 2004, they operated as a pirate, staying on air the majority of the time, barring outages for frequency collisions with newly licenced stations, raids by Comreg, and at one stage, the theft of their transmission equipment from Three Rock Mountain.

Funding during their pirate era came from sponsorship, which was run through an immmensly complex arrangement of holding companies, so that sponsors could not be accused of helping pirates.

A number of times during this period, the station went off air for licence applications. They finally won a licence for an alternative rock station for the youth market in November 2004, beating the Zed FM consortium operated by Bob Geldof, amongst others. They are expected to return to air, legally, in July 2005