So it was the Sony Awards last night - the annual awards event generally dubbed 'the Oscars of British radio'. And it was the BBC's night. Either the Corporations station's have been producing particularly fine radio this year or the Sony's panel are biased - or perhaps all the commercial radio stations are rubbish - either way, the Beeb took 13 of the 19 awards, with Radio 4 named Station of the Year and new digital station BBC7 taking the Station Sound gong. Radio 2's Jonathan Ross and Paul Gambaccini got awards for best entertainment and music broadcaster respectively, while Radio 1's Bobby Friction and Nihal won an award for their middle-of-the-night Asian music show. On the commercial radio side Xfm took the best breakfast show award (last year won by Radio 2's Terry Wogan) with the Christian O'Connell Show and Virgin got the award for best one off music show for Dominic Mohan's special programme on The Who. The winners in full:
Best daily music show: Late Junction, BBC Radio 3
Best one off music show: Dominic Mohan's The Who Special, Virgin Radio
Best music breakfast show: Christian O'Connell's Breakfast Show, Xfm
Specialist music award: Bobby Friction & Nihal Presents, BBC Radio 1
The entertainment award: The Jonathan Ross Show, Radio 2
The music special award: Axles, Engines, Music And Motown, Radio 4
The music broadcaster award: Paul Gambaccini, BBC Radio 2
News coverage award: Today Programme: Ethiopian Famine, Radio 4
News broadcaster: Mark Murphy, BBC Radio Suffolk
The speech award: Stark Talk: Joe Simpson, BBC Radio Scotland
The comedy award: Just A Minute, Radio 4 & BBC World Service
The drama award: Runt, BBC World Service
Speech broadcaster award: Stephen Nolan, Belfast City Beat
Station sound: BBC 7
Station of the year (under 300,000): FM103 Horizon
Station of the year (300,000 - one million): Pirate FM
Station of the year (one million plus): BBC Radio Ulster
Station of the year (UK): BBC Radio 4
Station of the year (digital terrestrial): Saga Radio