KISS live

KISS is Bauer's national station for dance, R&B and hip-hop, and one of the few British radio brands that began outside the law. It reached around 1.3 million listeners a week in February 2026, according to RAJAR. It first went on air on 7 October 1985 as a pirate station on 94 FM, broadcasting across south London. It was founded by Gordon "Mac" McNamee, George Power and Tosca Jackson, and played the dance, soul and hip-hop that licensed radio ignored; at its peak as a pirate it had an estimated half a million listeners. On 1 September 1990 it relaunched legally as Kiss 100 on 100.0 FM in London. Norman Jay presented the first show, which opened with "Pirates Anthem" by Cocoa Tea and Shabba Ranks. EMAP took full control in 1992 and Bauer acquired it with EMAP's radio business in 2007. KISS appeared nationally on the Digital One DAB multiplex on 27 December 2012, and in 2024 it became a digital-only station, when its FM frequencies were moved over to Bauer's Hits Radio. KISS has been an important platform for British dance, garage and grime artists, and its specialist shows launched DJs who went on to much bigger careers. Its retro spin-off, Kisstory, now has more listeners than KISS itself. KISS broadcasts on DAB+ across the UK, in the Rayo app and online. The stream on this page is the national feed.