ANNOUNCEMENT: Wednesday 16 September 2026
We are increasing our top-spins artist payouts (monthly).
Details to follow, check our Instagram for announcement early October.
BEFORE YOU SUBMIT YOUR MUSIC: GENRES WE DON'T AIR, MP3 ONLY
We’re All About Quality Kiwi Music
We LOVE New Zealand local music. But let’s keep it top-notch.
Thanks to YOU, we’ve received over 15,000 submissions, but we’re picky, if a song doesn’t meet our standards, it’s not getting airplay. We’re here to showcase the best of Kiwi talent!
Supporting human creativity:
AI-generated music and imagery represent a relatively new challenge for the creative industries. As a community-focused music station, we believe strongly in supporting local human creativity and the people whose work makes our creative community possible. Receiving constant fake AI generated music, make our job a bit hard at times - but we try filter these out for you so that there is at least one website you can go to and discover actual, local, organic NZ and indie music!
Making real music contributes to our New Zealand creative jobs.
That includes musicians, producers, graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, videographers and other creative professionals.
How we can spot AI-generated music:
AI music has a low bitrate sound and/or contain artifacts like ghost-sounds, aliasing, or words not quite pronounced right.
For a trained audio engineer listening with critical ears on hi-end audio equipment, we spot it.
This is like watching a streaming video and it starts to blur and buffer, and comparing the video to a Blu-ray disc that is uncompressed.
How we prevent AI music from being aired:
For any new music released after 2019, to be included on rotation, musicians need to have social proof and live video of them playing live on stage, in studio, or acoustic versions - not polished music videos - live video captured performances - played in a live format and yes, have the video proof to prove it - we will be watching & listening out for these. No laptops on stage or backing tracks, just real instruments & performances. We will try our best to filter out AI music using pre-checks.
How to Submit Your Music
Format: We only accept MP3 files.
What to avoid: We don’t accept submissions with other file formats or external links - they’ll be ignored.
Genres excluded:
New Zealand radio already has plenty of stations representing certain sounds, genres and demographics. Our point of difference is making a conscious editorial choice about what we want to hear, and what we think our audience will want to hear too.
That means you won’t hear much or any of:
- Gangster rap.
- Hardcore screamo metal.
- Te Reo Maori music - we primarily focus on English-language tracks, aligned with our international audience (currently mainly American listeners) and fits our international editorial direction.
- We exclude music that appears AI-generated or AI-assisted or lacks credible evidence of real-world musicianship, particularly post-2019 releases driven by viral trends in Ambient/Chill, Pop/R&B, Pop/EDM and EDM/House/Dance.
- Reggae.
- Christmas and/or Seasonal music.
That’s not about being closed-minded. It’s about having a clear identity. If you try to appeal to everyone, you risk appealing to no one.
We’re always open to something that surprises us, but our bar is simple: keep it cool, keep it fresh, keep it relevant. So if you’re sending us music, don’t send us what you think we should play. Send us your best tracks.
“Free Review” vs “Guaranteed Play”
-
Free Submission:
Not guaranteed
Long review window
No feedback promised -
Get Featured Play:
Guaranteed rotation
Faster review (typically up to 72 hrs)
Extra exposure
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: ROYALTIES & GENRE
Are there any royalties involved?
We are a fully licensed to play music station using a Broadcasting License which we pay annually through APRA AMCOS, our mission stays the same, get local sounds heard! As a fellow creative, it is important to support the creative community properly, we ALSO hold our own payout scheme to Top-Plays as well, this is an initiative to make sure artists get paid to submit their homegrown sounds.
Our music license is active with APRA/AMCOS New Zealand.
Want to know more? We have listed our financials, and operational details which we publish in the backstage supporters tier. Please consider joining to help us cover operational costs.
What genre / style do you prefer?
We typically avoid three specific genres: Metal Screamo, as the lyrics can be hard to decipher; Reggae, which just isn't our style; and Gangster Rap, since it often feels inauthentic to us. Aside from those, we’re open to most other genres! We do have a Quality Check in place, so if a recording sounds like a demo, is poorly recorded, or just doesn’t meet our standards, we might pass on it.
However, we generally welcome a wide range of submissions, especially those that are alternative, experimental, or underground. We also appreciate some political music for its role in promoting free speech and awareness. I hope this clarifies things for you! Feel free to reach out with any further questions.
MORE QUESTIONS WE GET ASKED
“When did we launch?”
Kiwiradio started as a DIY station to play friends and local music in 2021, we evolved and later went full-time radio and paid our Broadcasting License to play music, on New Zealand music month of 2026.
We have switched to part-time radio but spend every spare moment updating this platform and community.
“With one year campaign (multi song campaign), when can I hear promo for the second song?”
Kiwiradio usually focus one song pushed repeatedly for 3 months per song, this applies the ear candy strategy and is a lesson learned from working with labels.
We notice this is similar to commercial marketing. To schedule a one on one call (add-on strategy call) please use our Book Appointment button on www.kiwiradio.nz front page, and additional fee applies for one on one consultation.
“How do I send a pre-recorded song voice over intro?”
Use our voicemail function on the front welcome page (www.kiwiradio.nz), and say, 'hi this is X, and this is our song called X which is about [10 second description] - you are listening on Kiwiradio dot nz'. We can splice it together to make it fancy. Remember we like to hear what your song(s) are about. Please avoid saying 'this is my new song', instead just say 'this is my song' because your voice intros get added to our main server and that way it is not time sensitive and can continue to be played in the future.
“Can you stream our music directly from other streaming services?”
We can't afford those unnecessary subscriptions right now, as our budget is quite limited. Instead, we allocate our resources to maintain our radio servers. We kindly ask that you send us MP3 files for hosting on our server, as we only support that format and not WAV or others. We have unlimited server space, so feel free to send as many files as you'd like. Though as a rule of thumb, just your best three songs (radio edit singles) is best.
“How do I send a take down notice for my original song?”
We’re here to host and champion Kiwi & Indie, Unsigned, music. Our mission is simple: get local music heard. And if at any point you’d like to remove a track, just use the request form below and in the comments mention your “take down” instructions.
Thanks again for making our community airwaves brighter.
“Are we a pay to play radio station? Is our featured option considered payola?”
Short answer: No.
Our Featured option isn't a guarantee of airplay, it's a promotional service that helps support our community-driven station and covers the costs of running the platform, including broadcast licensing, hosting, and day-to-day operations.
We maintain full editorial control over everything we broadcast. Every submission is reviewed, and we only feature music that meets our quality standards and fits our station's programming. That means we won't air low-quality or AI-generated music, and we don't currently program genres such as reggae, metal, or rap.
Choosing the Featured option simply gives your release additional promotional opportunities within our platform. It does not override our programming standards or guarantee inclusion on our playlist.
Our goal has always been to support great independent artists while keeping the listening experience enjoyable and authentic for our audience.