Mercury Prize awards show airs live broadcast on 4music and Channel 4, Nov. 1st

4music and Channel 4 are gearing up to announce the winner of this year’s Barclaycard Mercury Prize live on Thursday, November 1^st.

Lauren Laverne and Nick Grimshaw will be hosting the coverage, which begins at 9:45pm on Thursday with a 4Music segment. At 10pm the winner of the prestigious award will be announced live on 4Music and Channel 4 and the full awards show will be shown at 11:35pm on Friday the 2^nd.

“We’re tremulously excited to be bringing the Barclaycard Mercury Music Awards to 4Music for the first time this year,” said Dave Young, Programming Director at Box TV.

“It’s one of the key dates in the UK music event calendar and every one of the nominees – both established acts and breaking new talent – has the power to send shivers down your spine. This is music at its rawest, and as such we’re also really proud to be following the recent success of the iTunes Festival Live on 4Music by delivering the Mercurys live to TV too – unedited and as it happens.”

The Head of Formats at Channel 4, Dominic Bird adds, “I’m extremely proud to welcome The Barclaycard Mercury Music Prize to its new home on Channel 4 and 4Music. Music continues to be a priority for Channel 4 and our three year deal to broadcast the nation’s most prestigious music prize plays a key part in reinforcing our commitment to the genre.”

A website was launched giving fans an opportunity to show their support in a completely new and unique way. The Voice Your Support website, which is live until November 5th, asks users to select their pick of the shortlist for album of the year and then tweet support for it. The tweet is then converted to an audio track thanks to proprietary software, with each of the shortlisted acts receiving a vinyl record of their best 500 tweets.

Past winners of the award include Dizzee Rascal, Ms. Dynamite, Speech Debelle and The xx, and you can see this year’s shortlist here.