[cma-l] Sony Radio Academy Awards 2011

Tue Apr 5 21:30:26 BST 2011

This simply reminds me that as the only growth area in broadcasting in the UK, we need our own category!

Andrew

Andrew David
Managing Editor

SIREN FM - offering you the chance to be involved in the exciting world of community radio where you're only limited by your nerve and imagination - go on, be brave
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From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk on behalf of Richard Berry
Sent: Tue 05/04/2011 13:21
Cc: CMA-L
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Sony Radio Academy Awards 2011

The problem is the groups and the BBC know how to enter awards. There is a knack to putting an entry together and they have it sussed - or they bring in people who do. As a sector we tend to lack that experience, despite our rather good showing in the N&R awards this year. It's also time consuming, I spent days on our (winning) N&R entry. 

It's also a matter of confidence and knowing what we do is good. The BBC and Commercial Radio will line up programmes for awards even before they go out and they keep a tight hold of what they do put out. Community Radio is more liberal about these things and so we may air great stuff and not know it. Keeping a folder on the server for presenters to drop their best bits in is a start and working with our teams to celebrate what we do. 

Let's hope that the nominations this year serve as an inspiration and we'll see more in the future. Our own awards (like the Gillards for BBC Local) might be fun but do we really want to be that insular? 

Rich

Richard Berry
Senior Lecturer in Radio
University of Sunderland
Tel: (+44) 0191 515 2239
Social: @sunderlandradio

From: Phil Korbel <phil.korbel at googlemail.com>
Reply-To: <phil at radioregen.org>
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 10:47:26 +0100
To: Ed Baxter <ed at resonancefm.com>
Cc: CMA-L <cma-l at commedia.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Sony Radio Academy Awards 2011

Move over Will Self - Mr Baxter is in the building!  [that's a compliment BTW]

as someone who used to be a Sony judge [and an ex Committee member even] all I can say is that polish isn't necessary - authenticity and originality is - and generally stands out a mile...  Community radio doesn't need a team of fluffers to make our radio shine.  More to the point - do we really need awards?  We do need to celebrate our achievements better but really - how much of that is about "radio"?

I'm surprised that we didnt get more nominations - it might be worth asking how many community radio judges there are.  That said, in one year when an excellent community radio entry was in my category, the ILR and BBC judges needed little persuading to get it into the gong list...

bests

Phil

On 4 April 2011 12:43, Ed Baxter <ed at resonancefm.com> wrote:

	Dear Joanne,
	I somehow missed last year's debate, evidently.
	I do not think there is very much expertise involved in entering; and
	indeed I have heard some of the Big Guns' entries and not been
	especially impressed. Insider knowledge is another matter and it is
	hard not to view the nominations in the light of the kind of closed
	shop or cosy club that characterises so many industry jamborees. The
	politics of the Awards is always curious to observe, if not exactly
	edifying. The occasional bone is thrown from the high table, for
	certain. But I am not sure what it has to do with radio as I
	understand the meaning of the word. Good grief, how utterly tedious
	and arse-numbingly dull it all is! I nearly wept with boredom as I
	scanned this year's nominations. Only a dentist would find anything to
	celebrate on the awards' website.

	I sat through the ceremony last year in a stone-cold sober stupor of
	glassy-eyed indifference, baffled by the in-jokes, depressed by Chris
	Evans's hyper-kinetic banter, and ruminating on the fact that while I
	had stood outside the hotel Evan Davies had portentously cycled past
	on his way home, smirking, evidently too savvy to turn up for the
	"Today" programmes's award. Of course the closed shop, if that is what
	is it, is that of Luvviedom: this is a showbiz event for showbiz
	people. Hoi polloi should understand that and the clue lies in the two
	hundred pounds it costs to get into the ceremony, let alone the amount
	it costs to enter the competition. I tried of course to down two
	hundred quids worth of booze during the ceremony, but it was
	physically impossible given the quality of the wine. And I searched
	the toilets in vain for signs of discarded cocaine, again to no
	effect. Hard times!
	But I did at least have a decent chat with a Mongolian waiter whose
	lack of knowledge in the feted broadcasters was eclipsed only by my
	own lack of engagement. The highlight for me was the award given to
	Bono for his radio-art portrait of Elvis Presley, which met with near
	universal indifference and even hostility on the part of some of the
	guests. As usual, I found myself in a minority of one in thinking it
	was actually deserved and that millionaire rock stars should try their
	hand at something new. It was surely well-made and heartfelt, which
	alone distinguished it. Hilariously, the broadcasters and their teams
	evidently mostly believed that they were somehow cooler and hipper
	than the terminally uncool and unhip Bono. Nothing could have been
	further from the truth. The same people will be cheering on Ronnie
	Wood this year, sure as night follows day.
	Jarvis Cocker was greeted as if the Queen Mother had risen from the
	dead and one longed for a doppelganger to get on stage to bear his bum
	at the new, my-people-deserve-me Jarvis. David Attenborough was
	applauded as though he could turn water into wine - or even transform
	the Chateau Enver Hoxha with which the tables were set into something
	drinkable. And Jenny Murray did what I insensibly mistook to be a Lady
	Macbeth routine, which set a thunderous tone of moral outrage that
	subsequent winners each tried feebly to emulate. But knowing
	self-congratulation was the overwhelming order of the day and if you
	had not actually heard of, worked with, or gone to school with
	Chris-this or Zane-that, it was because your natural place in the
	world was surely with the waiters and waitresses in the no man's land
	of cultural disenfranchisement.
	My companion, a fine artist used to the steamy solipsism of such
	industrial feeding frenzies, observed that it could just as easily
	have been an aluminium sales convention. Oh, how we laughed and
	crammed breadsticks into our mouths.
	I staggered onto the bendy bus reeling from my failure to beat whoever
	it as who had won the award I was up for. Back home, I hit the bottle
	of Buckfast I'd been keeping for special celebrations, downing it in
	one savage gulp; furiously, I swept the candles from in front of my
	little shrine to "Peely" off the kitchen table as the tears streamed
	down my now tattered tuxedo; and with a hollow bark of contempt I
	hurled my copy of PB Randolph's "Sex Magick" manual into the bin as a
	worthless distraction from reality. As I tossed and turned in my
	dreams that night, Jarvis, Jenny and the rest rose above me, forming a
	minor celebrity caravan of disdainful radiophonic phantoms, their
	faces looming in hideous close-up, their voices reworked as  if by
	Delia Derbyshire herself into a symphony of sneering superiority.
	"Sour grapes! Sour grapes!" they cackled, each poking at me,
	carressing me with corpselike fingers. And I awoke in struggles and
	cried, " I will sleep no more!"

	This year I am mercifully spared all the suffering as none of the five
	programmes Resonance entered even made the short list.

	Yours
	Ed Baxter

	PS caveat: none of the opinions and views expressed in this email
	represent or are intended to represent the opinions or views of
	Resonance FM, but are merely and solely those of the author.

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