The Arqiva Commercial Radio Award nominations were announced last night and Absolute Radio was the most nominated station, up for 7 prizes – a truly phenomenal result!

Well done to all at Absolute Radio – without whom we wouldn’t be nominated for Commercial Radio Station of the Year. We take on Hallam FM and Wave 105 at the ceremony on June 17th.

Congratulations to Christian O’Connell who is up for the Breakfast Show of the Year, nominated against the awards juggernaut that is LBC’s Nick Ferrari and Steve and Karen from Galaxy North East. The OC will also be hosting the awards again, and it’s a big well done to the team on the back of thier four Sony nominations.

Geoff Lloyd is nominated for the highly prestigious Presenter of the Year which is much deserved recognition for the entire Hometime show team’s talent and dedication. Also up for Presenter of the Year is Dave Gorman. Given that  he’s only been on Absolute Radio for 6 months, it is a brilliant result and demonstrates what a special show he’s created with Danielle, Martin and Producer Emma. Geoff and Dave go up against Ewen Cameron and Alan Rough from Real Radio Scotland.

Ben Jones and Adrian Hieatt are nominated for Absolute Radio at the BAFTAs in the Special Programme of the Year. Getting this show on air was a technical miracle and so thanks also go to Stuart and Adam Reed for there actually even being a show.

dabbl is up for the Technical Innovation Award – a brilliant result for an idea conceived and superbly executed by Golden Square Labs – everyone should be amazingly proud of an idea which has broken the mould of radio. The Big Top 40 show and Global Radio technology are also nominated.

Some bloke called Clive Dickens is nominated for Programmer of the Year – he certainly won the award for biggest grin and proudest man at the nominations.

This time last year, we had one nomination. 12 months on and we have 2 Music Week award nominations, 12 Sony Award nominations and now 7 Arqiva Award nominations. Well done!

- Paul Sylvester