Sony night fun: L-R Producer James Stodd, GTN's Will Jackson and me
It is an amazing night of bonding for nominated teams who get an opportunity to cheer, whoop and bang the table in support of their station (GMG and Global Radios seemed very good at this last night). It is a night for them to celebrate their hard work and get recognised for it. This is brilliant and long may it continue.
But as special as it is, many people in the Ballroom of the Park Lane Hotel last night or watching via the web will never hear the winning radio and that is a huge shame.
I'm in a privileged position as a judge - an honour that has been bestowed upon me four times - in that I listen to maybe upwards of 30 entries a year. This year the quality was the highest yet and in chats last night I learnt that I'm not alone in thinking this. Many entries that didn't make the top 5 were outstanding and I'm sure would inspire peers.
So, how to make some of this compelling content available to the radio community to hear? In this way the Sonys would fulfil an educational function in helping develop and feed the minds of presenters, producers and so on. I think it would be particularly useful in showcasing the ideas and talent in smaller stations that might be heard rarely by our wider industry.
It was a point raised initially by 'Jane' during my live blogging of this year's Sony nominations as you can see below...
Well, as I promised that night I fed Jane's point back to Tim Blackmore, the Chairman of the Sonys. He supports the idea which is clearly good news. As I understand it there have been on-going discussions about trying to make it happen.
Unfortunately I don't think it's going to be easy. There will be legal issues of copyright and royalities as well as practical considerations e.g. who would be responsible for uploading, curating and promoting the content?
So let's see how this one develops but wouldn't it be fabulous if the Sony Awards become even more significant to the UK radio industry in this on-going way?
Would you listen to Sony 'approved' audio? Perhaps you work in a country where already you have the chance to hear award nominated or award winning material? Has it helped inspire you or your colleagues. I'd be interested to hear how useful you think access to the audio would be to you, as I'm sure Tim would too.
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3 comments:
I'd love to see this happen. Jane's right, it's far too difficult to source examples of best practice in radio, yet it's as easy as typing radiofail into google to find the worst.
Award winners should be celebrated, and putting their work on a pedestal for others to learn from is a great idea, albeit logistcally tricky.
It should be easier to find examples of good production. If the Sonys could do this - it would create a really useful resource for people to search - both in a professional capacity and also for education establishments.
I'm guessing the copyright issues might be the stumbling block - but I'm sure some material could be made available. other awards (such as the New York Festivals) makes audio available already.
The audio from a couple of the shortlisted finalists in my category at this year's awards are available here:
http://jamesstodd.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/sony-radio-awards-nominated/
Thanks for the comments guys.
I didn't realise the New York Awards make material available afterwards.
It's good to know and the NY experience might be useful for Tim and co at the Sonys.
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