13th May 2008
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 WeaverSpecialist Music Programme category, for ‘Friday Night Floorfillers with Krystle’Charles Hazlewood won the Silver and Zane Lowe the Bronze
The Galaxy Network had cause to celebrate with Andi DurrantMusic Broadcaster of the YearAward 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 NetworkBritain’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’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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