The TV and radio programming details for the 2024 Mercury Prize have been announced – here’s how you can tune in.
The 2024 Mercury Award Prize ceremony will be filmed and broadcast live from Abbey Road Studios for TV on Thursday, September 5 from 8pm until 9:15pm via BBC Four, the Mercury committee has confirmed via a press release.
As for a radio broadcast, BBC Radio 6 will run through the entire event from 7pm until 11pm. This year’s radio programme is being presented Tom Ravenscroft and Deb Grant, while Matt Everitt will be on hand to interview the 12 acts behind each of the Albums of The Year.
The overall winner will also be announced during the broadcast, and the entire show will be played through in full.
Additionally, BBC Sounds will be broadcasting a special Mercury Prize 2024 collection on Monday, September 2. The collection will feature three hour-long cuts of Matt Everitt’s Pocket Guides, running through all 12 shortlisted albums, as well as two playlists. One playlist will celebrate this year’s shortlisted albums, will the other playlist celebrates past Mercury Prize winners. The BBC Sounds collection will also include archival interviews, deep cuts and more content.
The shortlisted artists for the 2024 Mercury Award Prize are:
Barry Can’t Swim – ‘When Will We Land?’
BERWYN – ‘Who Am I’
Beth Gibbons – ‘Lives Outgrown’
Cat Burns – ‘early twenties’
Charli XCX – ‘BRAT’
CMAT – ‘Crazymad, for Me’
Corinne Bailey Rae – ‘Black Rainbows’
corto.alto – ‘Bad with Names’
English Teacher – ‘This Could Be Texas’
Ghetts – ‘On Purpose, With Purpose’
Nia Archives – ‘Silence Is Loud’
The Last Dinner Party – ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’
This year however, the Mercury Prize’s usual live performance element at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith has been scrapped. Instead, this year’s event will see all 12 shortlisted artists attend the ceremony, where they’ll watch each other’s recent performances that were recorded for numerous programmes across the BBC’s network.
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Last year the prize was won by Ezra Collective for their album ‘Where I’m Meant To Be’. Speaking to NME ahead of their victory, Femi Koleoso said: “I feel like it’s just wonderful to be a part of something so big and so special. We’re just a small part of such a big picture.
“It’s been really exciting just to be hearing it played in so many different avenues and places, you know? To see people enjoying it and dancing to it – that’s all you can ask for really.” Following the victory, their album sales and streams also increased by nearly 900 per cent.
In 2022, Little Simz won the Mercury Prize for her album ‘Sometimes I Might Be Introvert’. The London rapper beat off competition from fellow favourites Self Esteem and Wet Leg at the time.
Elsewhere, Roots Manuva recently had his Mercury Prize trophy returned after moving house and accidentally leaving it behind. Manuva – whose real name is Rodney Hylton Smith – took home the award at the 2002 Mercury Prize for his album ‘Run Come Save Me’.