A different radio awards
Posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 11:59am. #
Last week, I was lucky enough to have been invited, along with Global Radio’s Nick Piggott, to speak to the radio bit of the ABC – the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. We spoke about new technology and radio – how we’re working together to “agree on technology, compete on content”.
The ABC Local Radio Forum and Awards in Canberra was a day’s conference, with an awards ceremony right in the middle. We landed in Canberra at 4.00pm, and, having seen the sights by 4.10pm (some of them twice, ho ho), we ended up in the awards ceremony. The ceremony was much like, I guess, the Bauer Awards, or the Frank Gillard Awards for BBC Local Radio (not that I’ve been to the latter – or even the former under their present owners).
Presented by a nice and rather quite famous man called James O’Loghlin, it was refreshing to hear clips of each of the winners. When was the last time you’ve heard clips being played at any UK radio award? Refreshing, but also rather a roller-coaster for the emotions: jokes and posh frocks mingling with harrowing audio from ABC Local Radio’s excellent coverage of the Victoria fires. Serious stuff – interviewing people who’ve lost many of their relatives, or people watching a fire coming down the road towards them while live on-air.
Not only did they have clips of audio in the ceremony itself, all delegates also walked away with a copy of a CD with more bits of great content from right across Australia. I grabbed a few – keen to share fantastic radio with my colleagues in the UK. The idea of sharing great content like this was a great plan. Knowing what great radio sounds like will always raise our game. Rights allowing, wouldn’t this be a great idea for any radio awards ceremony?
Every three years, the ABC ask the Australian Government for their money. A guest of honour at the awards was the Australian politician who’ll be signing the cheque in less than two weeks. I trust that he, like me, was impressed at the great radio we were treated to – and the great enthusiasm for the medium, from all the broadcasters present that night.
Student Radio Awards made a CD of all the winning entries back in 2000 (I don’t know if they still do). I only know this because I did the artwork for it (and have probably still got a copy).
SON&R at BBC collected great audio clips and sent them around other stations, again not sure if they still do (or whether SON&R still exists).
Olly