The Big Slice boys to take new music to another level
The Big Slice Music Show is again proving to be leaders, in their support, love and passion for new music. The team are proud to announce to the world that they’ll be joining the new TV channel LERN Global TV (LG-TV) on the worldwide power platform of Roku’s streaming service. Roku TV boasts a phenomenal 70-80 million users across the world and Roku Streaming Service is full steam ahead rolling out their services in the UK. The Big Slice has moved from That’s TV, which was a regional network providing content across Greater Manchester and the rest of the UK on its other sister channels. That’s TV is where it all began for the team, Paul presented his own chat show called ‘That’s Chatty’ where he invited the creative world of art, culture and music (in a somewhat make-shift studio in Manchester) to tell viewers more about what’s going on in the thriving city. In a meeting with CEO Daniel Cass, Paul Owen and Denis Ferrige poured out their passion and explained the necessity to support music in such an influential city. In doing so they managed to land their own weekly music show. The Big Slice Music Show was born. The production team over the years has varied in size, sometimes with only 2 people at the helm; Presenter/Producer Paul Owen and Editor-in-Chief Tom Melrose. What would normally be impossible in television, they somehow managed deliver a weekly show for over a staggering three and half years!! The show featured musicians, bands and performers as well as tapping into the festival scene. They also recorded and filmed at arguably one of the most credible music School’s in Manchester SSR (School of Sound & Recording) where they worked closely with a great team of sound engineers and delivered polished shows with world class sound and visuals. Over the years they featured many artists such as BBC’s Mark Radcliiffe, John Bramwell ( I AM Kloot), The Proclaimers, Danny Fields (The Ramones) and Slow Readers Club to name drop a few, BUT, the show’s main focus was on the new musicians coming up through the ranks, the cutting edge and the brand new.
The new show promises to be so much more, giving new music an unprecedented platform to a global audience that even some established artists would be envious of. The show’s style and layout on LERN Global TV will have a Playlist of continuous music videos on it. It’s been carefully curated and handpicked by the team, with new artists being added every week! So, you can jump in when you like and enjoy the ride. The music videos will include information on the emerging artists as the songs play out with weird and wonderful facts about them and where to find and follow them. The production team has been working hard behind the scenes and already have hours of new music videos ready to go. Viewers will be able to pour over the content safe in the knowledge that this is the place for new music from all over the world. For the more inquisitive music lover, if an artist takes your fancy on the Playlist, you can choose to watch a live session of 2-3 songs back-to-back on demand. Not only that, you also have the option to delve deeper and watch an interview with them, allowing you to connect, feel and hear what they’re all about. That’s what music is all about, right? The Big Slice Music Show is giving you music from all over the world, songs, sessions, and interviews served up in one Big Slice.
What is very evident is LERN Global TV’s ambitions for Roku’s streaming service. They’ve seen what the Big Slice team are capable of and are aligned in what they want to achieve together. The Big Slice team have done the leg work and clocked the miles up with a staggering 70+ shows and 200+ repeats on That’s TV, now it’s the time to turn it up a notch or 2. Paul added “We’ve worked our bloody socks off over the years, week in, week out, keeping day jobs afloat, keeping the music show alive, it’s not been easy, but god! Do we love it, our time at That’s TV meant we learnt how to make a TV show, we can’t pretend we are the finished product yet, but our passion and taste in music…well.. money cannot buy that!” He went on to add “Now all the hard work feels like it was worth it, with the support of the new station anything is possible, over the years we’ve always led by example in the festivals we’ve produced, the gigs we’ve put on, our unbiased approach in music, and everything we’ve been involved in, including our radio shows”. Paul laughed and said “it’s funny, as I see people trying to copy what we do, kind of makes me chuckle, because they’ll always be a step or two behind us, and they’ll always be in the wake of our sturdy ship, we’re looking forward to a bright future at LERN Global TV, the thing that is different about the channel is there are no algorithms, no big record labels behind the artists ploughing thousands into promoting them, ramming the music down your throats on every platform like they do, this show is about music we believe in, and we’re about to share it with the world and no one can stop us. The possibilities for artists is exciting and bypassing the need for record labels or big management deals to get the music where it belongs, on a worldwide platform, giving real music lovers access to it and for the viewers to choose, not being told what they should listen to.” He excitably added “I feel this is very empowering for emerging artists and the channel is aiming for a conservative 500K+ subscribers per month in the first year of launching which is likely to be May 2020”
The channel will be shoulder-to-shoulder on Roku’s streaming platform and sharing a home page with Now TV/Prime Video/ Netflix and Sky-on-Demand to name a few. Roku are fully supportive of the launch and aim to assist in bringing subscribers to the channel. Over the next 6 months, once it goes live, the cost to subscribe to the service around the world will vary and will be relative to £$1/2 pounds or dollars each month, which is nothing, considering the cost of some of the bigger streaming services. Subscribers will get full access to the artists you’d never have discovered otherwise. Tom the Editor of the show is delighted with the move. He said “we’ve put a lot of hard work into the show, at times self-funding it, but we’ve laid solid foundations over the years and now we are determined to take it to the next level production wise. I have great plans up my sleeve that we just couldn’t execute at That’s TV so now I’m buzzing that the investment will bring these to fruition”. He added, “We’ve got artists submitting music from all over the world, Japan, India, Belgium and USA for example, and it’s only going to get bigger and more diverse as word spreads about this new show. If artists are considering submitting their work, the music videos need to be of a good standard, we understand that emerging bands pay for the video’s out of their own pockets and we understand this, so we have always helped give them the platform and attention they deserve, part of the criteria is that to be included they can’t be a signed artist/band, this is just for emerging artists only, genre wise, if we like it, we’ll play it, simple”
