2013 Arqiva commercial radio award winners

Wednesday 3rd July saw the commercial radio sector ascend on the Park Plaza Hotel Arqiva Commercial Radio Awards – a night filled with live music, celebrities, jokes a plenty and celebrations looking back at forty years of commercial radio.

In usual Earshot fashion – here’s a review of the winners of the Imaging Award, Marketing Award and Event of the Year Award.

 

Imaging Award – sponsored by Beats and Beds

Some would say that imaging was quite the backbone of the night, as the organisers had commissioned jingles for each era of the forty year celebrations for commercial radio.

Throughout the night during the ceremony there were jingles to show-off the style and standards of each decade. One for the anoraks in the room!

Moving onto awards – the first award of the night was picked up by the mature Global Radio brand, Classic FM. The award winning imaging composed by David Arnold is explored in more detail in this video from the stations last year birthday celebration video:

The judges said  that Classic FM was a worthy winner due to its “superb use of music and sonic identity along with rich, glossy and memorable creative, along with the use of space made the audio stand out”. You can hear more of the cuts of the Classic FM package here: http://davidarnoldmusic.com/radio-classic-fm/

Here’s the moment Classic FM won:

Marketing Award – sponsored by Get Me Media

The Marketing Award was scooped by Absolute Radio for their fantastic branded content campaign with Wickes. A brilliant example of how to integrate a sponsor into your marketing activity and create truly unique content for the listener and the advertiser.

This actually was the ‘Best Use of Branded Content’ at this years Sony’ Awards too – so you can read the full case study on this campaign by reading the Earshot Creative write-up of the Sony winners.

The judges felt the Wickes campaign “was the best example of a radio station working with a sponsor to engage with its target audience through in store stunts, promotions, on air competitions and even a Nativity play. It was a great way to integrate a client into programming with an innovative approach”.

Here’s the audio from when Absolute Radio won the award on the night:

Congratulations to Absolute Radio who picked up three gongs on the night including Best Specialist Show for Ronnie Wood and National Sales Team of the Year too.

 Radio Station Event of the Year

The Radio Station Event of the Year Award was picked up for the second year in a row by Capital FM for their Summertime Ball. The team at Capital picked up this award in 2012 and the gong went to to the ball for the second year in a row in a prize announced by Britain’s Got Talent’s Francine Lewis.

Having been part of the production team this year I am slightly biased but the event saw 80,000 tickets being sold out in two hours time on the same day that George Osborne announced the country is about to be in a double dip recession – it seemed the power of Capital and the biggest concert was enough to pull in the punters.

The event was pulled together across all the station platforms – On Air, Online, Mobile, Tablet, TV, Social Media and Street Teams to deliver a single strategy-led event hosted by Justin Timberlake. There’s video, photos and news content from the event here.

Here’s Siobhan McCreesh, Global Radio Director of Events and Rob D’Ovidio, Capital FM Managing Editor speaking about their win on the RadioToday Audioboo channel.

The judges felt that Capital Summertime Ball should win because “the event ticked all the boxes, helping to propel Capital back to the number one spot in London as well as unifying all the stations in the Capital brand.  Capital make the event their own by continuing to change and grow the format to make it a must for listeners and artists alike”.

Here’s the audio from when Capital picked up the award for the second year in a row:

A fantastic night for all – congratulations to all the winners and nominees. Here’s to the next forty years in commercial radio!

The winners are as below:

Presenter of the Year (under 2 Million TSA) 
Steve & Karen – Metro Radio

Presenter of the Year (over 2 Million TSA)
Iain Dale – LBC 97.3

Programmer of the Year (sponsored by RCS)
James Rea – LBC 97.3

Newcomer(s) of the Year (sponsored by Creative Skillset)
Andrew Murray – 103.1 Central FM / Forth One & Forth 2

Journalist of the Year (Ali Booker Memorial Award)
Dan Freedman – LBC 97.3

Station of the Year (<500,000 TSA)
Isle of Wight Radio

Station of the Year (500,000 to 2M TSA)
Metro Radio

Station of the Year (over 2 Million TSA)
LBC 97.3

Breakfast Show of the Year (under 2 Million TSA)
Steve & Karen’s Breakfast Show – Metro Radio

Breakfast Show of the Year (over 2 Million TSA)
Kiss Breakfast with Rickie, Melvin & Charlie – Kiss

Feature(s) of the Year 
Lionel Glitzy/Hywel and Jamie’s Vegas Adventure – Rock FM

Single Programme or Broadcast of the Year
Ciaran’s Cause – Real Radio North West

Specialist Programme of the Year 
The Ronnie Wood Show – Absolute Radio

Social Action Initiative
Walk For Harry – Free Radio

Station Imaging Award (sponsored by Beds & Beats)
Classic FM – Global Radio

News Coverage of the Year
IRN News & Sports Coverage Produced by Sky News Radio

Marketing Award (sponsored by Getmemedia.com)
The Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show with Wickes – Absolute Radio

Local Sales Team of the Year (sponsored by NRS Media)
Smooth Radio London – Real & Smooth Ltd

National Sales Award
InStream – Absolute Radio

Radio Station Event of the Year
Capital’s Summertime Ball with Vodafone – Capital FM

Advertiser of the Year
British Sky Broadcasting Ltd

Media Agency of the Year
Mindshare

PPL Breakthrough UK Artist of the Year
Emeli Sandé

PPL Most Played UK Artist on Commercial Radio
Coldplay

Chairman’s Award
John Mottram, formerly of Department Culture Media & Sport, now at PRS

 

Image Credit: Radio Today Live