Features Rare Transmission: Why We Need More TV Slots For Breaking Bands

America’s music market is often cited as a difficult challenge, near impenetrable for some bands who try as they might, just don’t appeal to the U.S. audience. And yet there’s one avenue to take that’s far more open and welcoming Stateside than it is in the UK: Music television. Why is it that breaking acts over here have two options: 1. Break through the Jools Holland barrier, make one performance per record and hope that you do good; or 2. Throw your passions and principles into the flames and opt for painful, mimed two-minute slots on Loose Women or This Morning?

Rarely will a UK act get the chance to perform on Jay Leno or John Letterman or the various other nightly chat-shows hosting several music performances a night. Meanwhile in America, the likes of Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver have performed several times over throughout this year, as examples. Justin Vernon had the chance to chat to comedian-turned-host Stephen Colbert before being given the opportunity to play ‘Holocene’ on Jimmy Fallon a week later. Yes, his second album was a huge release Stateside, but I can only think of one artist that performed live on two separate, big national shows over here. The artist in question was PJ Harvey and one of those performances was quite remarkably on a political discussion show, in front of a presumably bewildered Gordon Brown.



Bar the odd festival slot that gets shown on BBC Three and subsequently racks up a band’s album sales by 1050%, access to mainstream television audiences is completely limited. The X Factor’s Sunday slot is a Sony love-in and the buck stops at a shoddy appearance on T4 in between repeats of the Big Bang Theory, if you’re aiming for the teen audience. Chat shows come in the form of Jonathan Ross or Graham Norton, but these are weekly affairs and don’t extend throughout the whole calendar year.

In America there are countless talk show hosts with a wealth of groups playing every night. You’ve a ridiculous amount of youtube clips of bands on Letterman or Jay Leno to flick through each week, whereas over here Jools Holland is only on for a third of the year, once a week. Sure, it unearths some genuine stars (Laura Marling, Mr. Hudson, Adele all had their big breaks through a stunning performance on Later…) and has recently acted as the bridge between hype and real sales for the likes of Lianne La Havas and Lana Del Ray, but the fact remains that it is the only remaining open door for emerging acts to shuffle through. Not a single route in exists apart from via. Jools’ doo-wop razzle-dazzle jazz hands bonanza. In truth, most of the power exists with radio stations and those who select three, four songs a week to add to their daytime playlist. Aside from on ‘Later…’, television isn’t regarded as a means to an end.



Decades previous and Joy Division were making their now-famous, only nationwide television appearance on BBC2’s ‘Something Else’. Proof if ever it was needed that TV performances are wonderful snapshots of a band in the prime. Fast-forward twenty years and they remain something of a novelty, especially for those without much of a fanbase, despite being deserving of one.



Opportunities for emerging UK acts to replicate such a feat as the above are few and far between. Perhaps two, three artists a year show themselves up and make a name for themselves through tv performances. Even from a distance, we pick our favourite US chat show slots each year, with hundreds to choose from. TV On The Radio’s Letterman performance of ‘Wolf Like Me’, The Strokes’ striking debut on the same show - these stand out. But each year we’re offered plenty of fresh faces, making their case and promoting what is often their debut EP or album.