You may have already heard that Absolute Radio had a record breaking night at the Sony Radio Academy Awards last night with 7 awards including gold for Frank Skinner, Ronnie Wood and Annabel Port (scroll down for more). However, I’d like to also just pay tribute to some of our friends who also enjoyed astonishing success. Here at One Golden Square, we’re proud to work with some amazing production partners and last night they proved they really are the best in the business.
Somethin’ Else Productions took home 2 awards on top of Ronnie Wood’s gold. Robbie Savage won the Rising Star after an amazing year on 5 Live’s 606 and congratulations also go to Jez and the team who work immensely hard on Jazz on 3.
We couldn’t be more pleased for TBI Media’s Phil Critchlow and our Music team’s newest recruit Jenny Nelson who took Sony Gold for the John Bonham story, narrated by Dave Grohl for BBC 6 Music. An amazing story which was beautifully told.
Charlie Jones and Simon Crosse of the Rock ‘N’ Roll Football team and Dave Gorman’s producer Chris Skinner together won a well deserved silver award for The Man Machine, a music special produced by USP Content for BBC Radio 2. Hosted by Jarvis Cocker it looked at the work of Kraftwerk.
One of the highlights of the night clearly include the return of possibly the finest broadcaster of a generation, Danny Baker. The standing ovation in the room demonstrates the love and respect the industry has for the man. Well done to Annie Nightingale who’s just marked 40 years in broadcasting and who richly deserves the accolade for being as relevant today as she was then – an icon to many broadcasters and the only person in the room who could match Ronnie Wood’s Rock N Roll stories.
The Gold award this year went to Jenni Murray. This inimitable and inspirational woman is unparalleled in her abilities both as an interviewer and an exemplary communicator. Well done Jennie, Annie & Danny.
Elsewhere congratulations go to talkSPORT who were the other big commercial radio winners, taking a hat-trick including Station of the Year and Programmer of the Year. 5 Live also had a stellar night taking home 7 top prizes including Best Breakfast show for Nicky Campbell and the wonderful Shelagh Fogarty.
There’s one other bit of news from last night to share. Four years ago, a fresh-faced breakfast producer from One Golden Square met a newsreader from Lincs FM at the Sony Awards. Four years on and last night, shortly before the ceremony started, Brian Murphy asked Alison McGarragh to marry him. Luckily she said yes. It was the start of an amazing night for them both. Alison won 2 Golds as part of the Jeremy Vine show and Brian won a silver for his work on the Absolute Radio Network’s imaging. A date is yet to be set, but it’s unlikely they’ll be walking up the aisle at the upcoming Arqiva Awards. Congratulations to you both from everyone at One Golden Square – a wonderful story to cap off an amazing night.
