Sonys: Absolutely Fabulous

Well, it had to be the headline didn’t it?

Sony nominations night has been and gone. For those who’ve entered, it’s a bit like waiting to hear if you’ve made the school football team. As you stand alongside your peers, bottle of lager in your sweaty palm, nervously awaiting your fate!

Absolute Radio had a stonking night with 12 nominations including nods for Breakfast Presenter Christian O’Connell, new recruit Frank Skinner and the coveted UK Station of the Year.

It’s well deserved for Absolute. It’s produced some truly original content in the past twelve months and, in my view, it’s pushing the boundaries for commercial radio in the UK.

Who wants to take bets on whether Baddiel and Skinner get nominated in 2011? Nominated in both the broadcast and podcast categories I would predict as this is how Absolute roll.

In the UK Station of the Year category, Absolute faces competition from BBC 5 Live and Talk Sport. It’s a great shortlist of bold, fresh stations. Good work judges!

All in all, it was a very good night for commercial radio. LBC 97.3’s Nick Ferrari picked up five nominations – a Sonys record says [link=https://radiotoday.co.uk/news.php?extend.5793]Radio Today[/link].

Nick is an incredible broadcaster, no doubt about it. At his best, he can toughly challenge decision makers whilst at the same time warmly relating to his callers. I expect he will do very well on the night of the Sonys themselves.

Other nominations worth mentioning, well, the ill fated networks BBC 6 Music and the Asian Network both picked up nominations including one for Adam and Joe. If you remember, Adam Buxton challenged the Director General Mark Thompson to a fight during a live TV debate about the BBC Strategic Review.

This started a debate on the live blog I ran during the nominations about presenters nominated for awards after they or their programmes had been dropped. There’s something to debate in the pub tonight. Meanwhile, I wonder how Jarvis Cocker will view being nominated for the Rising Star award for his work at 6 Music?

Prison Radio, the station based at Brixton Jail in South London, bagged two nominations. It was the story of last year’s Sonys after winning four awards and leading to a number of prison based gags on stage!

Another non-traditional broadcaster to get recognised last night was Sun Talk. To be more precise the face – and voice – behind the Sun’s internet station is up for a Sony: Jon Gaunt. Expect a colourful speech if he gets the award. Only last week, Sun Talk won a British Press Award so it may be on a roll.

So, congratulations to all the presenters, producers and stations nominated. I was honoured to be a judge this year and I heard an outstanding collection of radio leading to the toughest judging decisions I’ve ever had to make over the years.

Put simply, Sonys night is a great celebration of radio whether you’re up for an award or not. Perhaps I will see you at the Grosvenor House Hotel on May 10th.

[b]Justin Kings runs speech radio and multi-media business [link=http://www.newsleadermedia.com/]newsleader media consultancy[/link][/b]