Kerrang TV: How a channel formed the choice music scene

“It was the spotlight of lunchtimes to return to my mate’s home and huddle around the TV, watch new bands, hear new thrilling music and be impressed.”

Enter Shikari frontman Rou Reynolds says rock TV station Kerrang “was essential” to him even earlier than forming the band.

For greater than 20 years, the channel has nurtured and promoted different music, introducing new followers to the scene and indulging outdated ones with iconic throwbacks.

Launched in 2001, Kerrang’s dedication to nu-metal and indie rock beamed the likes of Paramore, Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco not simply to screens, however to hearts and minds.

That is now in danger after Kerrang TV’s dad or mum firm, Channel 4, introduced a restructure to make financial savings which proposes axing the channel.

Rou says he is obtained little question the bands he noticed on Kerrang impressed Enter Shikari’s sound.

“Then after I fashioned Enter Shikari and the primary few years of our first album and all the things, Kerrang was utterly supportive,” he says.

“It supplied us a spot the place folks may see our music movies, the place folks may see interviews – they had been an excellent useful resource for bands beginning out.”

Sam Carter, lead singer of Architects, tells Newsbeat the channel was “a staple of my childhood”.

“I spent so many hours watching it and after I lastly noticed our movies on there it was such an superior second.

“I really feel prefer it was a very essential place as a gateway into heavy and different music.”

However Channel 4 says what Kerrang affords, in addition to sister stations Kiss and Magic which additionally face the chop, has more and more been changed by social media and would quickly be unprofitable.

A spokesperson for the broadcaster says the channels “now not ship revenues or public worth at scale” and that its new technique was to concentrate on its digital shops.

Kerrang turned the final refuge for rock followers after Scuzz TV, which tended to function lesser-known bands, got here off air in 2018.

And for those who had been a metallic fan flicking by way of channels, chances are high you’d skip by Kiss the place you’d hear extra mainstream dance, hip-hop and R&B.

DJ Alyx Holcombe feels Kerrang has been “the place and the hub for different folks”.

“Its connection to the rock scene was completely unrivalled,” the BBC Radio 1 Indie Present and Introducing Rock presenter says.

Alyx additionally has a weekday present on Kerrang Radio however she nonetheless has a particular place in her coronary heart for the TV channel.

“I simply bear in mind Kerrang TV being on all day, on daily basis, watching my favorite bands on this planet and simply being like ‘after I develop up, I need to be like that’.”

Whereas she accepts Channel 4’s level about altering viewers habits which means fewer individuals are watching music movies on TV, Alyx thinks typically social media algorithms depart bands failing to succeed in new followers.

“There’s something else deciding the place your content material hits and the place it goes,” she says.

“And that algorithm can change at any level. Then it is damaging to musicians as nicely as a result of they’re in all probability pondering, what are we doing incorrect?”

Enter Shikari has used TikTok as a approach to go behind the scenes with their music and movies, speaking followers by way of their selections and processes.

Whereas it is a new approach to join with followers, Rou acknowledges it is very “self-directed” – which is not at all times a very good factor.

“Whereas for those who’re doing an interview on a music channel you then’re not utterly in cost, it may well go off in numerous instructions, and other people can see the actual individual.”

Sam recognises that more and more followers are discovering music movies on social media.

“However I’ll bear in mind fondly seeing a few of my fave bands movies for the primary time on Kerrang,” he says.

Alyx and Rou do not suppose TikTok affords the identical sustained publicity to bands as Kerrang.

“What locations like Kerrang TV do is all of the arduous be just right for you,” says Rou.

“You are greater than prone to be launched to music that you will be excited by for those who’re into different music or rock music.”

And “despite the fact that it form of sucks”, Alyx feels it is essential to concentrate on the positives for the longer term.

“There are going to be different ways in which folks can devour that content material,” she says.

“It is nearly folks with voices within the scene making sufficient area for these bands to develop after which discovering a path of how you can push them on.”