Kiss pays the price
23 June, 2006
Ex-pirate Kiss FM has been handed the largest fine imposed on a commercial radio station in the UK for serious breaches of regulation codes. 
Ofcom said it had fined the station, commonly known as Kiss 100, a total of 175,000 pounds. The radio station received 10 complaints about broadcasts between April and November 2005 containing “offensive language and sexual content”.
The media regulator revealed that of the 10 complaints, eight concerned the scheduling of material containing offensive language and sexual content. These were broadcast during the breakfast show.
The other two complaints were related to two ‘prank calls’ aired by the broadcaster without consent from the participants.
Kiss admitted that it was “in bad taste for our breakfast show to take advantage of both the mistaken phone number divert, and the person whom received the return call”.
This is not the first of fines that Kiss 100’s financier has received. A previous fine against another of Emap Radio’s stations, Key 103 FM Manchester, totaled 125,000 pounds.
Kiss FM began as a pirate station in 1985, catering to what was thought to be over 500,000 listeners, but became financially supported by Emap in 1990 after acquiring a licence.
It had always described itself as “an edgy station aiming at an edgy audience”.