Well over a week on from the breaking controversy surrounding Josh Fawaz’s AI cover of Like A Prayer and Australian radio has delivered its verdict on AI created music—it’s all good!
This week’s Radio Monitor charts show that despite the media attention and the artist changing the streaming credits to confirm that both the beats and vocals are in fact AI generated, Australian commercial radio have continued their love affair with the track.
All three major CHR networks, Hit, Kiis and Nova have not skipped a beat after the AI revealations with the song remaining in the #3 postion on this week’s chart (increasing its spins by 2%), well ahead of the only other Australian entries in the top 20, G Flip’s Bed on Fire at #6 and Sonny Fodera’s pair of hits Let Me Be In Your Arms and 2025’s Think About Us at #11 and #18 respectively.
The Music reached out to the music directors of all three networks asking about their AI policies and intent after the song’s AI revealation, with no response.
On LinkedIn, ARN’s (the parent company of Kiis) former Chief Audience and Content Officer Lauren Joyce, who left the business in January, weighed in on the media coverage, labeling it a “Reddit campaign”.
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“I'll give you the uncomfortable answer as someone who lead content for an audio business. I would have endorsed its airplay, too,” Joyce said. “A programmer's job is to play the music people want to hear. That's how you drive time spent listening. And this track earned its spins.
“The calls for labelling annoy me. Nobody demands a disclaimer when a track uses synthetic guitars instead of real ones. Music is about the way it makes you feel, not how it was produced.”
Former ARN Chief Content Officer and now independent radio consultant Duncan Campbell backed up Joyce’s take, saying:
“Radio’s job is to play popular hits. These days radio is not the only platform to hear hits and generally are not hit makers lime they once were. If the listeners like it and want it which research would validate then radio would be silly not to play it.”
Both Joyce and Campbell were at ARN last year when it was revealed that the network’s CADA station was using an AI-generated announcer on air. A spokesperson at the time told the Sydney Morning Herald:
“We’ve been trialling AI audio tools on CADA, using the voice of Thy, an ARN team member. This is a space being explored by broadcasters globally, and the trial has offered valuable insights.”
Not everyone from commercial radio is as impressed with the sector’s attitude, with the Hit Network nights announcer (and The Music Power Pick panelist) Nic Kelly going into bat for his listeners.
“Treating CHR listeners like idiots that deserve & want slop is so disrespectful and I’m over it,” Kelly said in response to Joyce’s comments. “(I’ve had) 15 years this year talking to these people - the homogenisation of our listeners pays them such a disservice.
“They are nuanced, thoughtful, and if they knew a song was generated by the same thing that’s threatening their jobs & livelihoods, they’d give a shit. Not to mention the most important part - what this stuff is doing to our artists, our musical economy and our cultural fabric.”
Unfortunately Kelly’s take is not shared by his colleagues with the Hit Network, among the track’s biggest supporters over the last week. Despite the song being absent from Kelly’s own show which airs on the station, Melbourne’s Fox FM spun the track 57 times since last Friday according to Radio Monitor figures, making it the Madonna covers’ biggest champion.
Kiis was close behind with 53 spins, while Nova Sydney clocked up 38 plays.
The news was no better in regional radio, with strong support from both the ARN and Southern Cross Austereo owned networks as well as independent networks Ace Radio and Super Radio Network. The only network seemingly swayed by the controversy, removing the song from the playlist this week is the Capital Radio Network which run stations in Goulburn and the Snowy Mountains.
As revealed by The Music last week, not only was the track the biggest Australian song on radio, but its dominance was having a distinct impact on the Australian music quota that stations are obliged to play. From Monday to Friday last week, between 6am and 6pm, that single track accounted for 36% of all Australian spins on KIIS Sydney, 25% on 2Day FM, and 22% on Nova Sydney.
When over a quarter of all the Australian music being spun during the day on key commercial stations is being held up by an AI-generated Madonna cover, the figures make a mockery of ACMA’s decision in February that ARIA’s plea to tighten loopholes in the Australian quotas were unnecessary.
So, there you have it. If you’re an Australian human artist thinking commercial radio will have your back, you might need more than a prayer.
