KISS NEEDS YOU!

BIG THANKYOU TO GAMEKEEPERS WHO HAS DONATED $20,000 DIRECTLY TO KISS - WE LOVE YOU! Target now reduced to $65,000 for Go Fund Me Campaign.

KISS FM needs you! The broadcasting authority requires all low powered radio stations like KISS FM to have the transmitters relating to their licences on or lose the licences. Over the years KISS FM has suffered the theft of a number of our transmitters, and because we operate on a very limited budget and due to delays beyond our control in getting access to transmitter sites, our efforts to bring the licences affected by those thefts back into compliance with the broadcasting authority's requirements have been hampered resulting in the broadcasting authority recently turning up the heat - we need to act NOW. This situation, combined with changes in technologies affecting KISS FM transmissions and the resulting deterioration in our listener experience, means that it is necessary for us to consolidate and update our equipment to ensure that we can keep KISS FM on air with a clean signal free from interference from adjacent broadcast transmissions. To do this we need your financial help because we can't do it alone. It’s a massive and extensive job but it will keep us on the FM airwaves, improve our signal and most importantly save KISS FM. We need to modernise our transmitters, antennas, computers and commission new masts and sites. So we are asking you, our listeners, to help by donating to our Go Fund Me campaign. $85,000 will save the station and give you, our listeners, a better FM radio experience. So PLEASE help keep the KISS FM vibe alive so we can continue to support Australia’s dance music community by donating whatever you can, any amount will help, and we'll be very grateful.

KISS WILL SURVIVE NO MATTER WHAT, IT'S JUST THAT RIGHT NOW WE COULD DO WITH SOME MUCH NEEDED SUPPORT xxx Thank you!

Current Challenges Facing KISS FM:

• Current signal issues – urgent upgrades will enhance signal and cover a greater area

• The theft of 6 of our transmitters

• No yearly government funding like Community or Public Broadcasters

• A very small backend running a very large station output. Kate & Tim are running a station that would normally take 8-12 people to run. Kate has a permanent disability.

• Commercial station and quasi-online ‘radio stations’ imitating everything from our name to our shows to even our own words. EDM is an acronym you will never associate with KISS FM

• Spotify and other weird algorithms which kill the art of DJing and the underground dance music scene

• Instagram, Facebook etc which have killed radio advertising spends. Lazy Marketing is a vacuous click addiction afflicting many a Promoter and Brand sadly

• Cost of living is tough on our Paid-Up Members

• Membership and Advertising is how KISS FM stays alive

• Rents have gone up [our studio and transmitter sites]

• Outdated website – needs funds for revamp

• Data issues in the last National Listener Survey – the CBAA only surveyed half of Melbourne in relation to KISS FM. This is a most unfortunate accident

• Public and Community Broadcasters getting Local Councils and Festivals to do Exclusives – thus shutting KISS FM [and other radio] out from participating and partnering key Dance Music and cultural events

Who listens to KISS FM - AKA why it is so important to keep going!

• On FM – 99,000 a week – however this figure only represents half of Melbourne so you can safely double that and add other people in the car/room listening

• On-line 30,000 streams nationwide and from 150 countries a day

• 7% of our audience is Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander

• 11% of our audience is LGBTQI

• Our audience is 99% over 18

• A hard-working bunch 42% earn over 100k, 70% work fulltime

• 45% speak a language other than English at home

• 51% listeners listen to KISS FM for 2 hours plus each day

• The 87 local DJs and presenters doing weekly shows live

• The 36 International show hosts – many of whom have been on KISS FM since we've started – and racing around the world talking about it – like Nicole Moudaber, John Digweed, Nora En Pure and Chicane for example

• The artists. We have supported so many Local and International artists via airplay, interviews, guest mixes, in our charts and on our shows. There are no large labels or ad spends telling us who to play, no way Jose! KISS FM is a place that encourages and provides a large and exceptional audience that Artists can rely on and grow with.

IN DEPTH:

KISS FM has been operating as a low powered FM radio station since 2005. The station is owned and managed by Timmy Byrne and Kate Wignell. For a Low Powered station the music and the ethos have delivered a very large and diverse weekly audience.

Timmy and Kate have dedicated twenty years to keeping KISS FM on the airwaves and supporting local DJs and Producers. KISS FM's local show hosts are matched in credibility by our international show hosts – all of whom have requested to be on the KISS FM airwaves. Many people have asked "What's in the water down there in Australia?" regarding Australia's international reputation for dance music and its associated community and industry. The answer quite frankly is "Kiss FM Dance Music Australia!”. KISS FM is known of, listened to, and respected by DJs and Producers around the world. KISS FM has grown an audience of well over 200,000 listeners per week in Melbourne, Australia and across the world since 2005. Our mission is to make underground electronic dance music, including hip-hop, accessible to all without having to answer to commercial overlords.

Recently, KISS FM was accepted as an aspirant member of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA). Unfortunately, however, there are no frequencies available for aspirant community radio stations in Melbourne.

So for the time being, we must keep broadcasting via our low powered frequencies on 87.6, 87.8 & 87.9FM, and via our online live stream for those outside of broadcast range.

Our licences are referred to as LPON – Low Powered Open Narrowcast - and we share the far left end of the FM dial mainly with religious and ethnic groups. This was the only way underground electronic dance music could be made available to the public anywhere in Australia outside of a club or festival when we started. We believe electronic music and the skilled art of DJing should be available to all. After twenty years of ours and our dance community’s dedicated and unrelenting efforts, now in Australia, Dance Music is the most popular genre compared to all other music genres.

Through the data collected by the CBAA, KISS FM has proved that not only does KISS FM serve a large community, it is also a truly diverse community - reflected through the 98 different genres of dance music shows we air each week – half of which are performed live from our studios in Brunswick.

KISS FM is funded by our Members and some Advertising. Our Hosts and Presenters are Members.

In order to embrace the challenges brought on by 2025, and to address the new interference some listeners are now experiencing with our signal in some areas, it has become necessary for us to update the network of transmitters and supporting technical equipment to meet our broadcasting licence requirements. Plus, due to the theft of transmitters and increasing transmitter site maintenance costs, the station needs to raise substantial funds to keep the sites compliant with the broadcasting authority's requirements.

To meet these challenges and requirements, KISS FM is now turning to its community - its friends, DJs, listeners and members to raise $85,000.

This $85,000 will return our broadcast signal to the 'clean sound' that it was in 2024 and, in many places, make it even better. A small portion of funds raised will be invested in updating our Membership system so we can grow and remain independent, plus some funds will help modernise the website and our phone apps.

So if you have ever listened to KISS FM, benefited from its support or just want to help keep the tunes available to everyone, and keep the KISS FM vibe alive, we implore you to please contribute, whether it be a small or large donation everything counts, and we would be very grateful.

Any questions. or to contact Tim or Kate please email us via the contact details here or visit our website and use the Contact Form