The Sonys on Monday - Radio's big awards night of the year - is a largely enjoyable ritual. The evening at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London's Park Lane is long - but there is more goodwill around than in many of these sort of occasions. And it is the only time the industry can see itself in the round - or a semblance of the round.
Thus those assembled in the cavernous ballroom come from the BBC and Commercial Radio, from big stations and small stations and from those who are in music radio and those who focus on speech. In recent years alcohol consumption has fallen and the acceptance speeches have been shorn of most of their baroque ornamentation.
Radio 4 did fine - even if the predominant hue was silver rather than gold. The tally was 3 Gold awards, 10 Silver and 2 Bronzes. In some other years we have won more Golds and fewer Silvers - but it's still a decent haul and down to the skill of the programme-makers - both from within the BBC and the independent radio companies that provide us with many excellent programmes. Here are the details:
Radio 4's winners
The Drama Award.
Gold: Mr Larkin's Awkward Day
Silver: The Color Purple
Bronze: Goldfish Girl
The Interview Award
Gold: Fergal Keane interviews Lana Vandenberghe
The News and Current Affairs Award
Silver: Today
The News Special Award
Silver: Poetry From The Front Line
The News Journalist of the Year
Silver: Mike Thomson
Speech Radio Personality of the Year
Silver: Eddie Mair
The Speech Broadcaster of the Year
Silver: Evan Davis
The Comedy Award
Gold: Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show!
Bronze: The Now Show
The Feature Award
Silver: Anatomy Of a Car Crash
Bronze: Leonard and Marianne
The Breaking News Award
Silver: Attacks in Mumbai
The Themed Programming Award
Silver: 1968 - Myth or Reality?
The Multiplatform Radio Award
Silver: World On The Move
Radio 3 - happily - won the Station of the Year Award - for the first time. Here is the list of all the awards made on the night.
Of course every year there are some programmes - whether big programme strands or individual documentaries - you particularly wish had won the top bauble... but restraint is called for. It would not be right to single out in public any single programme.
The Radio 4 winners were all top notch. Count Arthur Strong, winner of the comedy award, is a very strong flavour - one very much to my taste. We know that there is a section of the audience that doesn't get it - but we also know that another section of the audience loves it with feeling. Steve Delaney - the comic genius behind the programme - picked up the award as himself. I had wondered whether he might make his acceptanace speech in character. There will be another series. Catch it.
The Drama award was won by Mr Larkin's Awkward Day - written by Chris Harrald. It provides a delicious insight into Philip Larkin's character - and has a tremendous sense of period. We will repeat it.
And Fergal Keane's interview with Lana Vandenberghe (from the programme strand 'Taking a Stand') - who when working at the Independent Police Complaints Commission in London leaked documents about the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. Fergal pressed her hard - but with careful politeness. A terrific piece. Listen to the programme here.
- The Sony Radio Academy Awards and the Radio Academy.
- The Guardian's Media Monkey went to the awards.
- The Telegraph's Anita Singh on the awards.
- Steve Delaney interviews Count Arthur Strong in The Guardian in 2004.
- Fergal Keane wrote a piece for the BBC News web site about Lana Vandenberghe.
