Smallzy to host new Nova show
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Nova’s Kent ‘Smallzy’ Small will add the Apple Music Fresh 40 to his hosting duties on the network from today (21 Jan).
“I’m pumped to be counting down Apple Music Fresh 40 each week and bringing our listeners some of their favourite hits,” Smallzy said, who last year won an ACRA Award for Best Music/Entertainment Personality.
The new show will count down the 40 biggest songs on Apple Music during that week, airing Saturdays 12pm to 3pm, and will be EP’d by Zach La Cava.
As we know, radio networks teaming night talent with digital music players is not a new concept; SCA have previously partnered with Shazam and YouTube, and last September, launched the Vevo Top 20 Countdown with Angus & Ash, following its acquisition of Authentic Entertainment.
Peter Clay, NOVA Entertainment’s head of programming for Nova 96.9 and the smoothfm network, said, “Smallzy already has a great relationship with the biggest and emerging music artists around the world, and is connected to what his listeners want to hear by his number one radio show Smallzy Surgery.
“It seemed the perfect fit for an announcer with unique insight into trending and emerging hits to host this new countdown.”
The partnership between Nova and Apple goes back four years.
Nova has worked with Apple on programming music shows, including Nova’s Fresh 40, compiled from iTunes download data, and in 2013, 2014 and 2015, the pair collaborated on a series of popular ‘Best Of’ shows.
Competition among streaming providers is heating up, with Pandora and iHeart making a pay-to-play in the arena. Apple Music now has more than 20 million paying subscribers, but that’s half of Spotify’s 40 million.
It’s partnerships like this that Apple hopes will accelerate the music streaming platform’s market share.