We play only 30% local. We don’t just pick any song -Kiss FM Program Controller explains process of choosing Kenyan music

As the heated debate on why Kenyan music is not on the radio continues, stations have come out to pledge their support and increase the local airtime.

Kenyan artists have been complaining about Bongo artists and Nigerians taking over local music space despite local artists producing quality projects.

Playing 70% international

Popular radio station Kiss FM has now come out to explain how they pick songs that get heavy rotation. According to the Program Controller, 30% local content only has been airing so far. 70% is international.

The controller also shared that Khaligraph shouldn’t complain at all because he was one of the most played artists in 2018 in the station.

Here’s the full interview published in their website:

1. What percentage of local music is played?

Kiss I think we are playing 30% Kenyan music and Khaligraph should not be one to complain because he was heavily played last year.

2. How do you choose which songs should be played on air?

They are considered based on merit. If a song is good it will be played. We have a music panel that sits every week and goes through all the submissions for that week, both international and local and then based on availability of space to add new songs, we pick the songs that are going to be added for that week. The music added also depends on how many songs we have also dropped because we play a fixed size of a database. We don’t just keep adding songs.

3. Who curates music?

Curation is done by the programme controller basically and music schedulers but also we have an automation software where we set some rules and then it does most of the work and then basically everything is as we want it to be.