Overview
- KitschKrieg announced on Friday that it will not attend or accept any 1LIVE Krone award after publishing a program snapshot showing only 34 of 363 tracks on 10 November were German‑language.
- The trio says 1LIVE uses artists’ followings to advertise the prize while giving little regular airtime to German songs, and it singled out a promotional image that originally omitted Shirin David.
- Shirin David publicly backed KitschKrieg and released screenshots of an internal email proposing how she could promote the award, questioning the fairness of audience‑voted prizes.
- WDR/1LIVE rejected the accusations, saying language is not the sole criterion, that KitschKrieg’s tracks have been played on 1LIVE more than 1,000 times since 2018, and that nominees receive optional promotional material; fan voting runs until 2 December and the ceremony is scheduled for 3 December in Bielefeld.
- The dispute has widened into a policy debate over planned 1LIVE programming changes, the proposed end of COSMO, and calls for a French‑style quota for German‑language music that could change how radio supports domestic artists.