Awards Top Stories

BBC dominates at Sonys, Jarvis has a save 6 rant

By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 11 May 2010

As usual, the BBC dominated at the radio industry’s big night out last night, the Sony Awards, taking 23 of the 37 awards on offer, though given quite a few awards are for comedy and drama and quality news, there’s a few categories where ‘pile em high sell em cheap’ commercial radio stations are never going to get a look in.

Still, assuming you count British Forces Radio and community group Hackney Podcast, the commercial sector did take fourteen prizes in total, including three of the five all important station of the year gongs for Planet Rock, Moray Firth Radio and Kiss FM.

6music, nominated seven times in six of the main categories, scored just one Gold award, but that was for the best show on the radio ever, ‘Adam & Joe’, who won the Best Comedy prize. 6 also won the periphery Rising Star award for Jarvis Cocker (who is still rising as a radio star, of course), taking their awards haul to two. The other doomed BBC digital station, the Asian Network, also won a prize, for Best Speech Programme.

Jarvis used his acceptance speech to diss the BBC for its plans to shut down his station. According to the Telegraph, he told the Sonys audience: ”Since I am an elected majority, you will forgive me if I have a little rant. I said that a vote for me was a vote for 6music. The show that I do couldn’t exist on any other station. I’m allowed to play whatever music I like, interview whoever I like and record jingles in my cellar”.

He continued: “The presenters of 6music are music makers as well as music presenters. The BBC must offer licence players value for money. I’m not saying what we get paid, but they do it for the love of music and it is certainly value for money. 6music is never going to be the biggest station in the UK but it would be devastating if it was to close. 6music isn’t going to change the world, it just wants to make it a bit nicer. Rant over, thank you very much”.

Elsewhere, commenting on this year’s awards, Tim Blackmore, chairman of the event, told CMU: “Having been associated with these awards since their inception in 1983, I remain immensely proud to be part of an industry that continues to deliver high quality audio on an ever increasing range of platforms. Radio is truly one of our most creative industries and the proof is in the work of this year’s gold, silver and bronze winners”.

To watch footage from the bash and interviews with nominees and guests conducted by the fabulous Marsha Shandur and wonderful Nick Wallis (OK, so they’re both very long term friends of CMU, but scientific research has shown they are both fabulous and wonderful respectively) go to www.radioawards.org.

For fans of long lists, here’s the full list of this year’s Sony gold winners:

Breakfast Show Of The Year (Big Stations): Today, BBC Radio 4

Breakfast Show Of The Year (Small Stations): Dixie & Gayle, Real Radio Yorkshire

Best Music Programme: Dermot O’Leary Show, Ora Et Labora for BBC Radio 2

Best Specialist Music Programme: Zane Lowe, BBC Radio 1

Best Entertainment Programme: Capital Breakfast Show, 95.8 Capital FM

Best Speech Programme: Nihal, BBC Asian Network

Best Sports Programme: Sportsound, BBC Radio Scotland

Best News & Current Affairs Programme: Newshour, BBC World Service

Best Breaking News Coverage: Alzheimer’s Tragedy, BBC Radio Ulster

Best Live Event Coverage: Absolute Blur, Absolute Radio

Best Community Programming: The New Ballads Of Reading Gaol, BBC Radio Berkshire & Company Paradiso for BBC Radio Berkshire

Best Internet Programme: Hackney Podcast, HackneyPodcast.co.uk

Music Radio Personality Of The Year: Scott Mills, BBC Radio 1

Music Broadcaster Of The Year: Zane Lowe, BBC Radio 1

Speech Radio Personality Of The Year: Frances Finn, BBC Radio Nottingham

Speech Broadcaster Of The Year: Sir David Attenborough, BBC Radio 4

News Journalist Of The Year: Lyse Doucet, BBC World Service

Best Specialist Contributor: Mark Kermode, BBC Radio 5 Live

Best Interview: Jenni Murray interviews Sharon Shoesmith on Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 4

Station Programmer Of The Year: Euan Mcmorrow, Radio City 96.7

Best Use Of Branded Content: NME Radio for Skins Radio

Best Single Promo/Commercial: Dear Stan, Talksport

Best Promotional/Advertising Campaign: Vote Joe, Real Radio North East

Best Competition: Who’s Calling Christian? Absolute Radio

Best Station Imaging: Oxfordshire’s 106 JACK Fm

Best Music Special: Elvis By Bono, White Pebble Media and Ten Alps Radio for BBC Radio 4

Best News Special: Crossing Continents: Chechnya, BBC Radio 4

Best Feature: Archive On 4 – Working For Margaret, Brook Lapping Productions for BBC Radio 4

Best Comedy: Adam And Joe, BBC 6music

Best Drama: People Snogging In Public Places, BBC Radio 3

Station Of The Year (up to 300,000): Moray Firth Radio (MFR)

Station Of The Year (300,000-1 million): BBC Radio Derby

Station Of The Year (1 million plus): Kiss 100

Digital Station Of The Year: Planet Rock

UK Station Of The Year: BBC Radio 5 Live

Sony DAB Rising Star Award: Jarvis Cocker, 6music

Special Award: British Forces Broadcasting Service