Coldcut founder Jonathon More has quit London dance station Kiss FM claiming the station is becoming increasingly commercialised.
Speaking to NME, he said: “If inane DJ chit-chat and sticking bananas up your arse on the air is what people like, then so be it.
“Kiss is not providing any kind of experimental music, electronic music, drum’n’bass, apart from between two and four in the morning.”
He made the claim after the station announced plans to move Coldcut‘s Solid Steel show from its two-hour Sunday morning show at 1am to a slot on Tuesday at 2am.
Coldcut, along with other DJs including Dr Bob Jones and Mannasah, left the station after hearing the plans.
More claims the decision is symptomatic of a station giving short shrift to ‘specialist’ shows – a criticism that has also been levelled at ‘alternative’ station Xfm since its Capital Radio takeover last year.
He said: “We could have accepted the change, said, ‘Thank you very much’ and fought it from the inside but we’ve had no support for such a long time from Kiss.”
But Kiss FM‘s new programme director Andy Roberts says his station is actually ‘overdelivering’ on its contract with the Radio Authority to provide 34 hours of specialist programming a week.
He said: “I think they (Coldcut) accept it’s not the Kiss they know and love and that we’ve messed with the Holy Grail slightly.”
The Radio Authority is backing Kiss FM‘s plans.
A RA spokesman said: “Kiss has only ever had a requirement of 34 hours of specialist output. That’s never changed.”
Now Coldcut will concentrate on broadcasting their music through their own website.
Co-founder Matt Black commented: “We believe that Netcasting is the new pirate stylee. We’re going to support that and continue doing Solid Steel on our web page.”
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