Musician Aly Cook‘s TV show Kiwi Country will be hitting UK and European airwaves on May 2.
Picked up by UK’s Keep it Country TV Channel, Cook will be promoting Kiwi country artists and landscapes. It will then be available weekly on Freeview where it will appear in up to 19 million homes.
The real star of the show, says Cook, is the scenery, which features in the segments of interviews and music videos.
“There’s so many really talented young artists who are producing videos that are like adverts for New Zealand.
“You look at Kaylee Bell or Jody Direen’s music videos and they’re just stunning.
“We don’t need a green screen – we can actually go and stand in it. We’ve got it for real. “Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit has really taken our landscapes to the world, so that in music videos, is just gorgeous.”
Cook hopes the self-funded project will attract much-needed, and deserved, interest for New Zealand musicians, many of whom head abroad to find success.
“People said to me, would there be enough material? Well, actually you’d be amazed, because in New Zealand, they’re just not getting to see it. We just don’t have the outlets for these kids.”
A performer herself, Cook has shared the bill with Rosanne Cash and Laura Bell Bundy and opened for Melissa Etheridge, REO Speedwagon and Huey Lewis and the News.
She has recently been working with former New Zealand cricket batsman, captain and coach John Wright, who has turned country musician.
“Over the years I had my music played in the UK and I built up relationships over there and one of those relationships was with a guy called, Phil Mack, who started with his own show on a satellite station, Keep It Country TV.
“He said how about putting a show together?
“It will be played on two different time zonings, so it allows people all around the world to watch it online.”
She describes the project as a true labour of love and hopes it will create exposure for young artists eager to get their music out to the world.
“A rising tide lifts all boats,” she says.
“If I pull this off, it lifts everybody else who is on the show and I want to educate people that it’s a big genre.”
Kiwi Country first goes to air on the Keep it Country TV Channel starting May 2, then weekly from then on Keep it Country TV.
It goes out to the UK on Freeview Channel 87, in Europe on SKY 389 and Freesat 516 online on www.keepitcountry.tv
UK 5.00PM
USA PST 9.00AM
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