FFH Leider Geil hands the playlist to whoever is listening. Two songs go head to head, both filed under the station's running joke of a genre, "leider geil," which translates loosely as "unfortunately awesome," the kind of track you are faintly embarrassed to love and play anyway. Whichever song gets more votes at LeiderGeil.FFH.de is the one that goes to air.
A Song-Against-Song Format
The premise is simple and a little self-deprecating. Rather than a DJ deciding what counts as a guilty pleasure, FFH puts two candidate tracks side by side and lets the audience settle it by vote, according to the channel's own listing on FFH's webradio page. There is no pretending the songs are sophisticated. The format exists specifically for the tracks people stream on repeat while insisting out loud that they do not actually like them.
One Channel Inside a Very Large Lineup
Leider Geil is a single stream inside a webradio offering that has grown to more than 80 channels, spanning top 40, 80s and 90s hits, eurodance, workout mixes, lounge, soundtrack and Schlager, run by Hit Radio FFH from its studios in Bad Vilbel. FFH has broadcast from the spa town northeast of Frankfurt since 2001, after relocating from its original Frankfurt base, and the webradio arm has become a way for the broadcaster to serve narrow tastes its single FM frequency cannot carry.
The Station Behind the Joke
Hit Radio FFH itself traces back to March 15, 1988, when a group of Hessian newspaper publishers backed a new private station to compete with state radio, going on air the following year as Radio/Tele FFH before the 1995 rebrand that gave it its current name, according to German Wikipedia's history of the station. Decades later, that same broadcaster is comfortable enough with its own pop instincts to build an entire channel around admitting some of its favorite songs are a little ridiculous.
Tune In
Leider Geil works because it does not ask listeners to defend their taste, it just asks them to vote. Stream it free on Radio Shuffle and help decide which guilty pleasure wins the next round.