Closing date approaches for BPR Awards

The closing date for the inaugural British Public Radio Awards is this Monday, 15th July, with more entries encouraged to be uploaded.

The awards, launched by the team planning to open Britain’s first national commercial general interest speech station, are designed to encourage and reward the production of great speech audio from both established producers and those who are yet to break into the mainstream.

Winners from each category will receive the Roberts Union Jack Sports DAB Digital Radio, and the overall Gold Award winner will also receive the Roberts Union Jack Revival RD60 Digital Radio. In addition, winners’ work will be highlighted on the British Public Radio website and online programme stream.

Entries already received include “A Life At Death’s Door”, a documentary narrated by Brian Blessed about our attitudes to death and dying, an experimental piece on cycling, “Life On Two Wheels”, a dark comedy entitled “4amcab”, a cutting drama about child sex abuse, “A Mother’s Love”, and the comedy podcast “Live From Kirrin Island”.

Entries are open to anyone, as long as the audio submitted has not been broadcast on BBC or commercial radio. Entrants so far include independent production companies, podcasters, hobbyists, and even off-duty BBC producers.

Mystery still surrounds one entry, “No Pain No Gain”, described as a feature about “the under reporting of assaults on sex workers”. This was uploaded to the British Public Radio Awards Audioboo channel on in late May, but unfortunately the accompanying awards entry form from the BPR website which should accompany the audio has not arrived.

So if you know the identity of the producer of “No Pain No Gain” – or you would like YOUR audio to be included in the awards, visit britishpublicradio.com/awards