[cma-l] Sony's update

[Phil Gibbons]

Hello all,

Myself and Joanne Schofield from Bristol Community FM met with Alan 
Zafer and Allison Webb from Zafer Associates, and the two people who 
organise the Sony Awards last week in London.

We took the many comments raised by CMA members on this forum. To save 
writing a massive email, I will write up all the notes and submit this 
to the CMA to possible post on the website in the near future, but here 
are a few points raised.

It was a very positive meeting and after an hour and a half I think we 
all learnt a bit about each other and started to discus how the 
Community Radio sector could be better represented in future awards.

Without re-designing the categories, or patronising us, there was no 
immediate 'fix', but as Alan Zafer pointed out Commercial radio was 
totally under-represented some years ago and they worked to re-address 
the balance with the BBC. We obviously have the Community award and the 
station award under 300,000 (which is free to enter through the Nations 
and regions held by the Radio Academy). The judges need to have a wider 
representation from the community radio and education sectors - we were 
assured this would happen, although it would be impossible to assign 
certain judges to certain categories or entrants due to the way the 
entries are divvied up.

As pointed out in Tim Blackmore's letter to the CMA, the awards are 
still reasonably priced for an award ceremony of this size - this was 
said again.

A level playing field was mentioned on several occasions, but Alan Zafer 
accepts that we cannot devote the same amount of resources as BBC and 
commercial stations can to these awards.

One interesting thing that they will commit to was the Chair of the 
awards, Tim Blackmore, visiting the regions and offering free workshops 
to Community radio stations on 'How to submit an entry and what the 
judges are looking for' - How to win a Sony!   Up till now, this has 
only been for commercial groups and regions of the BBC. This is a good 
positive offer that we should capitalise on.

Will let you know when the full report is done.

Thanks for all your comments and requests before, and let's keep the 
pressure on!

Phil
-- 
Phil Gibbons - Station Manager
phil at bcfm.org.uk

Bristol's only Community radio station - Your voice - Your choice!
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Online at: http://www.bcfm.org.uk

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