Radio Production Awards Nominations – by Paul Sylvester

18May

A week after scooping 7 Sony Radio Academy awards and a fortnight after receiving 7 Arqiva Award nominations, we’re delighted to announce the Absolute Radio family has received 6 nominations at the Radio Academy Production Awards. This includes Somethin’ Else’s Claire Neal for Music Entertainment Producer of the year for the Ronnie Wood Show (now there’s a programme on an awards roll right now – Sony Gold, 2 Arqiva nods and now this).

In the live concert category we are double nominated. Joe Adams is nominated for his phenomenal work on engineering Elton John at the Union Chapel and turning that into a great sounding concert for the radio. The entire programming team is nominated for our work at last year’s V Festival. If you remember, this was the first time we were able to broadcast live, full and uninterrupted sets from the main stage on our new DAB station Absolute Radio extra. Our thanks go to Sarah Champion, Vicki Blight, Ben Jones and Geoff Lloyd for turning everyone’s hard work behind the scenes into great radio.

For the second year running, Dean Woodcock is nominated for Studio Sessions Producer of the year. The volume of sessions, speed of turnaround and quality of sound that Dean manages clearly impressed. Fingers crossed this year Deano. We’ve been nominated in the Creative Award category for Baddiel & Skinner. This entry encompassed all elements of the campaign from the programmes to the podcasts and Sony Ericsson messaging, from the promo trails to the animations and the way it was a truly multi-platform project. However none of this would have been possible without the incredible talents of Frank, David and Emma Newman. Good luck again!

Finally,  we’ve also received a nomination in the online/multi-platform category for our podcast strategy. This was about how we grew our podcasts in 2010 to achieve 30 million downloads, opening our archive and commissioning podcast only content. Our congratulations also go to Somethin’ Else Productions who achieved 6 nominations on the back of three Sony golds. Well done also to TBI Media for a sound design nomination for Mark Pittam.

Finally, back to One Golden Square and well done to everyone on the nominations. It’s a nod to the entire programming and production team – fingers crossed for when the awards are handed out on June 13th.

Categories: Absolute Radio Events People 0

Posted by jonny on May 18, 2011

Playlist: 17th May

17May

The playlist is out now.

Panic! At The Disco move up to Absolute Radio’s daytime list with their new song ‘Ready To Go’.

Blondie – Mother (23/05/11)
Debbie Harry, Chris Stein and Clem Burke return with their 1st album in 8 years. ‘Panic of Girls’ will be released on the 4th of July. The single is about Debbie Harry’s search for her biological mother – she was adopted at an early age.

Categories: Music playlist 0

Posted by carrie on May 17, 2011

The Sony Winners

12May

We’re still basking in the glory of our seven Sony Award accolades from Monday night.

Just to remind you (in case you could forget!) we took home three Golds, three Silvers and one Bronze award in a record breaking win for the station.

The three Gold Awards went to our very lovely Annabel Port for Best On -Air Contributor, Ronnie Wood took the Gold Music Radio Personality of the year award for The Ronnie Wood Show produced by Somethin’ Else and Frank Skinner picked up his Gold in the Best Entertainment category for The Frank Skinner Show, produced by Avalon.

And now you can watch the moment these three Gold winners found out that they won…

Categories: Absolute Classic Rock Absolute Radio Comedy People 2

Posted by jonny on May 12, 2011

Absolute Radio Network Audience Grows by Over 25% Yr on Yr

12May
  • The Absolute Radio Network has grown year on year up 31% in reach and 26% in total hours
  • The Absolute Radio Network has also regained audience quarter on quarter – posting a 7% increase in reach and 11% increase in total hours
  • Absolute Radio has also grown this quarter with a increase in of 1.0% in reach and 11% in total hours
  • Sony Award winning Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show is also up 7% quarter on quarter and 27% year on year in reach

The Absolute Radio Network (Absolute Radio, Absolute 80s, Absolute Radio 90s, Absolute Radio 00s, Absolute Classic Rock) has shown positive growth year on year, growing by well over a quarter – up 31% in reach and 26% in hours.

The Network has also grown quarter on quarter; with a 7% increase in reach from 2,223 to 2,379 million and 11% from 15,867 to 17,625 increase in hours, quarter on quarter.

Absolute Radio has also grown this quarter with an increase of 1% in reach and 11% in total hours, up from 9, 467 to 10,457.

The Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show, which this week collected a bronze Sony Radio Academy Award has seen significant growth of 7% quarter on quarter and 27% growth year on year.

The national music and entertainment brand has performed particularly well in the important and highly competitive London market following another successful burst of Faces for Radio marketing achieving double-digit growth on the quarter 17% increase in reach and 82% increase in hours.

“In a week of success that saw us win seven Sony Radio Awards, it is particularly pleasing to see even more good news as the business recovers nearly all of the reported audience losses last quarter. We have continued to invest heavily in marketing this year, kicking off in March with our multi award-nominated national ‘Faces for Radio’ marketing campaign and we expect to continue to see the impact of this in the coming quarters”, said Clive Dickens, Chief Operating Officer.

Digital innovation remains core to the brand’s business and Absolute Radio continues to pioneer the radio industry in digital listening. 60% of the brand’s network listening is now done via a digital broadcast platform against an increased industry average from 25% to 27%.

Absolute Radio extra the host channel for the exclusive Premier League coverage – Rock ‘N’ Roll Football will be reported in Rajar as part of Absolute Radio for the first time in Q3 2011.

Source: RAJAR / Ipsos – MORI / RSMB, period ending March 2011, all stations and groups results are reported on their specified reporting period and TSA.

Categories: Uncategorized 0

Posted by jonny on May 12, 2011

Playlist: 11th May

11May

The playlist is out now.

Ed Sheeran – The A Team (13/06/11)
The 20-year old singer-songwriter has built a huge fanbase with 5 self-released EPs which he began selling out of his backpack at gigs. Ed’s album is due in September and he plays the Latitude festival in July.

Hard-Fi – Good 4 Nothing (20/06/11)
First new material from the Staines band for 4 years. 3rd album will be called ‘Killer Sounds’ released later this year.

Panic! At The Disco – Ready To Go (05/06/11)
2nd single from the Las Vegas’ band’s 3rd album ‘Vice & Virtues’.

Noah and The Whale plus Miles Kane move to A-list.

Categories: Music playlist 0

Posted by carrie on May 11, 2011