"We're aiming at trying to be on the air by late summer, the end of July, " said Ger Roe, chief executive of Dublin Rock Radio . . . the consortium behind Phantom. The station's launch has been delayed for over a year as it awaited the outcome of a case brought by Zed FM, which lost out to Phantom in its bid to secure the licence in November 2004.

Roe said Phantom is about to sign a lease on a city-centre premises and will begin fitting out the building over the coming weeks.

Zed, which counts Bob Geldof, Hot Press editor Niall Stokes and former FM104 chief executive Dermot Hanrahan among its shareholders, sought a judicial review of the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI's) decision to award the licence to Phantom.

Among other things, Zed claimed the decision process was improperly handled and that the BCI had discussed the alternative rock music licence with Phantom two months before it officially advertised for expressions of interest. The BCI denied such contact had taken place.

Following a High Court ruling that the licence had been fairly awarded to Phantom, Zed appealed to the Supreme Court.

In a majority decision delivered last week, two of the three Supreme Court judges who heard the appeal upheld the High Court ruling, quashing Zed's last avenue of appeal.

Dermot Hanrahan said the matter had now been laid to rest. "Our situation is we appealed, we lost and we lost fair and square, " he said.

Hanrahan said the consortium felt "vindicated" by the fact that the dissenting Supreme Court Judge Nicholas Kearns had found the BCI's decision to be "both unreasonable and irrational".

Kearns said Phantom had obtained the licence despite "having broadcast illegally for five years and in reverting to illegality when applications for licences were unsuccessful".

Hanrahan said Kearns' judgement showed that Zed was "not a bunch of crackpot litigants".