The Secretariat of the 2009 Sony Radio Academy Awards, the UK’s most coveted radio honours, are pleased to announce that the 27th Sony Radio Academy Awards will take place on the evening of Monday, 11th May 2009, at the Grosvenor House Hotel on London’s Park Lane.

The Sony Radio Academy Awards are organised by a Committee, representing a broad cross section of the UK radio industry, ranging from the BBC Networks, through large and small commercial outlets to community radio stations. Members are invited to serve because of their individual standing as radio professionals, and are appointed by ZAFER Associates who administer, produce and direct the Awards, in consultation with the Radio Academy and with the continuing support of Sony.

The 2009 Sony Radio Academy Awards Committee is made up of the following individuals:

Tim Blackmore, Chairman
Steve Ackerman, Managing Director, Somethin’ Else
John Baish, Managing Director, 2CR FM
James Cridland, Head of Future Media & Technology, BBC Audio and Music Interactive
Mark Damazer, Controller, BBC Radio 4
Trevor Dann, Director, The Radio Academy
Clive Dickens, Chief Operating Officer, Absolute
Lesley Douglas, Controller, BBC Radio 2 & 6Music
Graham Ellis, Controller of Production, BBC Audio & Music
Lisa Kerr, Director of External Affairs, RadioCentre
Anne Koch, Deputy Director, BBC World Service English Networks & News
Phil Korbel, Director, Radio Regen
Geoff Muge, Consultant for Sony United Kingdom
John Myers, Chief Executive, GMG Radio Holdings
Andy Parfitt, Controller, BBC Radio 1
Richard Park, Group Executive Director Global Radio
Tim Pemberton, Managing Editor, BBC Radio Bristol
Bob Shennan, Director of Radio, Channel 4
Mark Story, Managing Director National Brands, Bauer Radio
Scott Taunton, Managing Director, UTV Radio
Alison Webb, Executive Producer, Sony Radio Academy Awards at ZAFER Associates
Alan Zafer, Creative Director, Sony Radio Academy Awards at ZAFER Associates

View further information on the members of the 2009 Committee

Full details on how to enter the 2009 Sony Radio Academy Awards including a list of award categories, entry conditions and criteria will be available on this site in November.

ENDS.

For further information please contact Riza Turner at the Sony Radio Academy Awards Secretariat:
riza@radioawards.org
T: 020 7723 0106

Sony is a registered trademark of the Sony Corporation, Japan

www.radioawards.org

WINNERS ANNOUNCED FOR THE 26TH SONY RADIO ACADEMY AWARDS

GOLDS FOR JONATHAN ROSS, CHRIS MOYLES, RUSSELL BRAND, DERMOT O’LEARY AND COMMERCIAL RADIO’S KRYSTLE WEAVER AND ANDI DURRANT

A CLUTCH OF AWARDS FOR PLANET ROCK

RADIO 4 WINS STATION OF THE YEAR
Monday, May 12, 2008: The winners of the 26th annual Sony Radio Academy Awards, the UK’s most prestigious radio accolades, were announced tonight at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel. Over the course of a memorable evening, hosted by Paul Gambaccini, the winners of the Gold, Silver and Bronze awards were honoured across 31 categories, covering the breadth of UK radio output from News, Speech and Drama through to Comedy, Sport, Entertainment and Music.

Picking up their first ever Sony Golds were Russell Brand and Dermot O’Leary for The Entertainment Award and The Music Programme Award respectively.

It was also a golden night for 97.3 Forth One’s Krystle Weaver who stormed away with the top gong in the Specialist Music Programme category, for ‘Friday Night Floorfillers with Krystle’, while perennial radio favourites Charles Hazlewood won the Silver and Zane Lowe the Bronze

The Galaxy Network had cause to celebrate with Andi Durrant picking up the much coveted Music Broadcaster of the Year Award in a particularly hard-fought category that saw Planet Rock’s Fish take the Silver and Sean Rafferty the Bronze.

In what will surely be a huge personal triumph, the fiercely contested Breakfast Show Award went to The Chris Moyles Show, with Capital’s Johnny Vaughan taking the Silver and Clyde 1’s Bowie @ Breakfast the Bronze.

Commercial radio enjoyed further success in the Station of the Year categories with the Station of the Year: under 300,000 Award going to Silk FM and Station of the Year: 300,000 – 1 Million won by GWR Bristol. Manchester’s Key 103 picked up Station of the Year: 1 million plus, the first of their two Gold wins, the second being in The Competition Award for ‘Sell Me the Answer’. Another very popular Gold was Planet Rock’s Digital Station of the Year, which secured the station their hat trick of wins; Silver for Fish in Music Broadcaster and Bronze in the new Multiplatform Radio Award for ‘Planet Rock Month Specials’. The blue riband UK Station of the Year went to Radio 4

The richness and diversity of UK radio news was readily apparent within the News Feature Award category. The Asian Network scooped Gold for their hard-hitting documentary Britain’s Missing Girls’ while the World Service claimed Silver for ‘Benazir Bhutto: The Investigation’ and Radio Sheffield the Bronze for ‘The Sheffield Floods 2007’.

Some of the year’s key events were highlighted by the winners of the Breaking News Award with Gold going to Radio Ulster for the ‘Omagh Fire Tragedy’, Silver to the World Service for ‘The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto’ and Bronze to Hallam FM and Magic AM for ‘The South Yorkshire Floods’.

Owen Bennett Jones scored Gold in the News Journalist of the Year Award and Simon Mayo triumphed as Speech Broadcaster of the Year.

The Station Imaging Gold was awarded to Magic 105.4, Capital 95.8 picked up The Community Award for ‘Lights Out London’ and the Gold for The Promo Award went to ‘96.3 Radio Aire’s Green Project’.

In addition to the Category Awards, three Special Awards, gifted by the Sony Radio Academy Awards Committee, were also announced. The Local & Regional Lifetime Achievement Award, a category introduced last year to recognise a regional broadcaster, went to Downtown Radio’s Eamonn Mallie in recognition of “his tireless, authoritative and fearless reporting’ explaining the rollercoaster of Northern Ireland politics over thirty+ years”.

The Gold Award recipient was veteran broadcaster Brian Matthew to celebrate “an impressive record of more than 50 years of national and international radio broadcasting. For that lifetime career and in recognition of a truly outstanding contribution to UK Radio.”

And a Special Award was given to Jenny Abramsky CBE in recognition of the forty years across which she “has stamped her very distinctive imprint on our industry. Beyond the BBC, she’s been a mighty champion… working with and respected by her colleagues in commercial radio and beyond.”

Tim Blackmore, Chairman of the Sony Radio Academy Awards said: “These awards demonstrate that however many new platforms emerge, British broadcasters continue to create and to deliver truly outstanding examples of audio communication. Whatever name we give to our ever changing industry, it is the added value that we as broadcasters deliver for our listeners, that will determine the future level of their support.”

BBC 6 Music’s George Lamb was named the winner of the Sony DAB ‘Rising Star’ Award, a new initiative from Sony UK, which aims to recognise the radio stars of tomorrow. Beating stiff competition from the likes of Kelly Osbourne (Radio 1) and Amy Jones (Kerrang! Radio) Lamb swept to victory taking the most votes from the public for this new ‘people’s choice’ award.

Award presenters included: Joan Collins, Matt Dawson, The Zombies, Sparks, Mica Paris, Peter Snow, Jason Donovan, Edwyn Collins and Will Young.

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For further information please contact:

Maria Barham / Kate Etteridge @ LD Communications

T: + 44 207 439 7222
E: maria.barham@ldcommunicaitons.co.uk / kate.etteridge@ldcommunications.co.uk

Riza Turner at the Sony Radio Academy Awards Secretariat
riza@radioawards.org
T: 020 7723 0106

Sony is a registered trademark of the Sony Corporation, Japan.

www.radioawards.org

NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED FOR
THE 26th SONY RADIO ACADEMY AWARDS

Commercial and BBC Radio go head to head
across multiple genre categories

DAB’s pulse beats strongly with Planet Rock, BBC7, BBC 6 Music and BBC Asian Network scoring a clutch of nominations

Johnny Vaughan v Chris Moyles contest King of Breakfast.

Russell Brand and Dermot O’Leary with first Sony nominations.

The nominations for the 26th annual Sony Radio Academy Awards, the UK’s top radio honours, were announced this evening at a launch hosted by multiple Sony Gold winner, Chris Evans and webcast live around the country. The winners of the Gold, Silver and Bronze accolades in the 31 award categories will be announced at the radio industry’s gala night, held at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel on Monday 12 May.

The 2008 nominations reflect a UK radio industry that is dynamic, creative, diverse and has embraced digital technology to stunning effect. The Sony’s Committee has recognised this with the introduction of The Multiplatform Radio Award, following on from last year’s newcomer, The Internet Programme Award. This new category seeks to recognise the many and varied ways in which multiplatform services are utilised to extend and enrich the listener experience and is contested by Planetrock, one of three nominations for the Station, BBC York, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 1 and BBC World Service.

The growing strength in depth of commercial radio has earnt the sector a raft of nominations, many in categories that have traditionally been the preserve of the BBC, notably news: Century Radio is nominated in The News Journalist of the Year, The Breaking News Award, The News Feature Award and The News & Current Affairs Programme Award.

In the blue riband, The Breakfast Show Award, Capital 95.8’s Johnny Vaughan, Trent FM’s Jo & Twiggy and Radio Clyde’s Bowie@Breakfast take on 5 Live Breakfast and Radio 1’s Chris Moyles, the latter winning his first ever Sony nomination in the highly coveted Breakfast category.

The Entertainment Award is an intriguing battle between first time Sony nominee, Radio 2’s Russell Brand, with Radio 1’s Scott Mills and Key 103’s Toolan in the Morning, against twice nominated Capital 95.8’s Johnny Vaughan and Trent FM’s Jo & Twiggy Breakfast Show.

The Music Radio Personality of the Year is a contest between the ubiquitous Jonathan Ross (BBC Radio 2), Zane Lowe (BBC Radio 1), Jamie Theakston (Heart 106.2), Geoff Lloyd (Virgin Radio) and Lancashire’s finest, Adam @ Breakfast for Rock FM.

The diversity in this year’s nominations for The Music Broadcaster Award is testament to the abundance of talent behind the mic and across a broad range of music genres. BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lemacq is joined by Andi Durrant for Galaxy Radio, Fish for Planetrock, BBC Radio 3’s Sean Rafferty, and Paul Gambaccini for Classic FM, Radio 2 and Radio 4.

The Internet Programme Award, for podcast, streamed and downloaded programmes, showcases an exciting mix of on-line programmes. Last year’s Gold winner, Firin’ Squad is nominated again, along with Guardian.co.uk, who are also nominated in the Sports Programme Award, Unique the production company for Channel 4 Radio and Times Online and the Book Slam Podcast for the Book Slam Website.

DAB proves it is in rude good health with a total of 14 nominations. BBC Asian Network notches up a very impressive three nominations, including Digital Station of the Year where it competes with triple nominee, Planet Rock and last year’s Gold winner Gaydar Radio. BBC7 and BBC 6 Music receive four nominations and two nominations respectively.

The five Station of the Year Awards are highly coveted and a great reminder of the depth and geographical spread of the nations’s radio stations with BBC Guernsey, BBC Radio Foyle and Silk FM competing for Station of the Year: Under 300,000 and Radio 2, Radio 4 and 5 Live slugging it out in the national UK Station of the Year category.

The 26th Sony Radio Academy Awards were judged by over 100 industry professionals, each chosen for their broadcasting expertise. This year’s judges included Jon Snow, Miranda Sawyer, Colin Murray, Margherita Taylor, David Jensen, Andria Vidler, Lesley Douglas, and Mark Goodier. The judges were required to reach their decisions based solely on the content of the entry actually submitted, and not on the basis of any wider knowledge they may have. One of the enduring appeals of these awards is that they evaluate local radio against network radio, ensuring that every level of professional radio has an opportunity to shine.

Tim Blackmore, Chairman of the Sony Radio Academy Awards said: “With more than 1400 entries from 204 of the UK’s radio stations, and with the crucial involvement of judges from right across the industry, I want to thank my fellow professionals for their ongoing support of the only awards that celebrate the full breadth of our increasingly multi platform output. The Sony Radio Academy Awards’ recognition of UK radio’s creativity, integrity and personality remains without equal.”

The 2008 Gold Award, for a career achievement by an outstanding practitioner and the Local and Regional Lifetime Achievement Award recognising a broadcaster or practitioner whose body of work lies primarily within the localities, nations or regions of the United Kingdom, are in the gift of the Committee and will be presented at the awards ceremony on 12 May.

2008 also sees the launch of the Sony DAB ‘Rising Star’ Award, a new initiative from Sony UK, which seeks to recognise the radio stars of tomorrow. It is a ‘people’s choice’ award, with the winner chosen by listeners from a shortlist of emerging radio talent, none of whom have been broadcasting for more than 18 months. Steve Dowdle, Managing Director of Sony UK announced the shortlist of Amy Jones – Kerrang! Radio, George Lamb – BBC 6 Music, Hywel Evans & Jamie Atherton – Rock FM, Kelly Osbourne – BBC Radio 1 and The Rob Ellis Show Team – Galaxy Manchester, at the Nominations event and the general public are invited to vote for their favourite ‘rising star’ at http://www.sony.co.uk/risingstar

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For further information please contact:
Maria Barham / Kate Etteridge @ LD Communications
T: + 44 207 439 7222
E: maria.barham@ldcommunicaitons.co.uk / kate.etteridge@ldcommunications.co.uk

Riza Turner at the Sony Radio Academy Awards Secretariat
riza@radioawards.org
T: 020 7723 0106

Sony is a registered trademark of the Sony Corporation, Japan.

www.radioawards.org