The Vancouver “Pop Music” radio station 104.9 KISS-FM has been playing nothing but RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE‘s “Killing In The Name” on repeat as a reported sign of protest.
The radio station, currently owned by Rogers media, recently laid off two on-air personalities, Sonia Sidhu and Kevin Lim, on June 29 and the rest of the employees have “reportedly” revolted due to said termination.
KISS-FM has literally only been playing “Killing In The Name” by RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE for over 24 hours now, and is also taking requests, which all result in the RAGE tune being spun once again no matter what listeners ask for.
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist Tom Morello recently retweeted a tweet on June 29 that read “@RATM @tmorello a pop radio station in Vancouver 🇨🇦laid off all of their staff yesterday. Whoever is on the controls this morning has been playing Killing In The Name Of on repeat since 6am (it’s now 9:30). @KevinLimOnAir @Sonia_Sidhu It’s beautiful.”
As for the lay offs, Lim and Sidhu issued a statement saying they were simply informed they would not be a part of the next chapter of the station.
“KISS is changing and unfortunately we were informed that we won’t be part of this new chapter. Although this comes with mixed emotions, we want to express one overwhelming feeling: gratitude. We are so incredibly thankful for everyone who shared their mornings with us and invited us into their lives through the radio and our podcast. We’ve never taken you for granted.”
As far as we know, the stream is still happening which you can listen to for yourself at this location.
Mind you, this is most likely a simple publicity stunt to draw attention to the radio station which seems to be switching formats as per the radio player on the site reading ‘The New Alternative‘ (see below). Also, when a radio morning show is “laid-off” per say because the station is going another direction, well…you can pretty well figure it out for yourself.
Being someone who has worked in radio for over twenty years, and knowing that the music played is usually pre-scheduled and then merged directly into a computer program which plays it back on the air makes it unlikely that an actual “takeover” has taken place.
We commend their attempt though as it seemed to work.
@RATM @tmorello a pop radio station in Vancouver 🇨🇦laid off all of their staff yesterday. Whoever is on the controls this morning has been playing Killing In The Name Of on repeat since 6am (it’s now 9:30). @KevinLimOnAir @Sonia_Sidhu It’s beautiful. pic.twitter.com/kXi9BLKWb0
— CDJ (@RR7349) June 29, 2022