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Business News Media
Dublin’s Phantom to become TXFM as Communicorp’s Global deal approved
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 28 February 2014
Dublin’s alternative rock radio station Phantom 105.2 is to be rebranded TXFM it has been confirmed. It follows rumours earlier this month that the station might become an Irish offshoot of the similar UK radio outfit Xfm, after an alliance was struck between the British alternative station’s owner Global Radio and Communicorp, which owns a third of Phantom. But Global quickly denied that this was part of its Communicorp partnership.
Instead, the rebrand of Phantom aims to ally the alternative station with another of Communicorp’s radio brands, the Ireland-wide mainstream channel Today FM. Phantom’s owners – which also include Irish live music mogul Denis Desmond and a business associated with former U2 manager Paul McGuiness – told the Irish Times that the station, which recently laid off 20 employees, would retain its own targets, budgets and “market ambitions” but work in “greater unison with Today FM”.
In related news, the Irish Competition Authority has approved Communicorp’s aforementioned deal with Global Radio. As previously reported, the Irish firm will buy the UK FM licences Global was forced to sell by the British Competition Commission after it acquired GMG Radio. But, in a good deal for Global, Communicorp will then licence back the UK firm’s brands and syndicated programming for those FM outposts, so that Global’s quasi-national radio networks won’t be hugely reduced.
The Irish competition regulator has followed its UK counterpart in green lighting the deal, though the relevant minister in Ireland’s government must still rubber stamp the arrangement.
