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The awards cover all elements of audio, so whether you broadcast on your school station or record your own podcasts or music mixes at home, there’s an award for you.
Here’s our advice for entering the awards.
Entries for this year’s awards will be announced later this year. You can sign up to our Newsletter for further updates.
(8-11, 12-15, 16-18)
This award celebrates an individual who represents the most exciting audio talent of their age. You may be a presenter, an interviewer or a performer – anything where we can hear your voice doing what it does best.
Show us that you love making radio, that you have a curious mind, can think on your feet, can get the best out of the people you’re speaking with, can make us laugh, or make us think.
Awards in this category will be given in three age brackets – aged 8-11, aged 12-15, and aged 16-18. The age refers to your age on 31st December 2019.
Your entry should include:
You may be a technician, an engineer, a coder, an editor, or some other sort of off-air hero. You may have made it easier for everyone to make their shows, or helped rebuild or fix the studios, kept the station on the air, delivered an amazing outside broadcast, or connected your station with the other side of the world.
Show us that you’re an innovator, a technical wizard, a coding genius, or an engineering guru. Also show us that you’ve got great skills, huge dedication, resilience under pressure, and a flair for problem solving.
Your entry should include:
This award celebrates the best programme, show or podcast that is devoted to music. It could be about new music or old music, local music or music from around the world, live performance, recorded music or a mixture of both. It can be music of any genre – we just need to feel how much you love it, and that you want to share that passion with your listeners.
Show us that you have an in-depth knowledge of the music you’re playing, that you know how to make it sound exciting and fresh, and that the stuff you say between the tracks is entertaining and informative.
The entry can be from a single programme, or a series of programmes.
Your entry should include:
Supported by BBC Young Reporter
This award celebrates the best programme, show or podcast that focuses on news, sports, current affairs, interviews or documentary making. News or sports coverage could be global or national, or it could be something local to your town, your community, or your school. We also want to hear really compelling documentaries about fascinating subjects, from small personal issues to huge global politics – as long as you’ve got a really good story to tell, we want to hear it. We are looking for a captivating combination of informative, entertaining and original journalism.
Show us that you have an in-depth knowledge of your subject, and that you’re really good at getting the best out of your guests, or really good at storytelling. Make us laugh, make us cry, surprise us, educate us – but most of all, make us want to keep listening, and desperate to hear more.
The entry can be from a single programme, or a series of programmes.
Your entry should include:
This award celebrates the best programme, show or podcast that focuses on comedy or drama. For comedy shows, quite simply, make us laugh! Whether it’s stand-up comedy, silly sketches, or a radio sitcom, as long as you can bring the LOLs you stand a chance. And for dramas – it could be an original story you’ve acted out, or an adaptation of your favourite book – we want to be sucked into the story, with great performances and brilliant storytelling.
Show us that you’ve got great script writing skills, brilliant performers, and great direction. Also show us your skills with editing, sound design and special effects.
The entry can be from a single programme, or a series of programmes.
Your entry should include:
This award is for the best project or initiative where radio or audio made a difference to your community. How did it bring people together? How did it change people’s lives? How did it raise money or raise awareness of an issue? Audio can be so powerful, and we want to hear how your project demonstrates this.
The entry can be from a single programme, or a series of programmes.
Your entry should include:
(Primary School with Fun Kids, Secondary School)
These two awards are for the best school radio stations in the UK. A school radio station could be online, it could be broadcast on traditional airwaves, or it could be distributed around the school buildings on a loudspeaker network. It could be a continuous schedule of programmes (i.e., always on), an intermittent schedule (e.g. only at break times and lunchtimes), or it could be a series of digital on-demand programmes or podcasts – we just need you to demonstrate that it has a sense of identity as a radio station.
Show us that the programmes on your station are all really high quality, that they are creative, fun, entertaining, informative, and useful to the audience. Show us that the listeners love the station, that you’re providing a service to the school, and that you’re getting as many people as possible involved.
Awards in this category will be given in two categories – Primary (Reception to Year 6) and Secondary (Year 7 to Year 13). If your school covers primary and secondary, please decide which one category you’re going to enter, and tailor your entry to ensure all the material is from the appropriate age group. Sixth Form and Technical Colleges should enter the Secondary category, but please ensure all material is from students under 18.
More information and some inspiration here
Your entry should include:
This award is the most impressive use of radio/audio production toward an educational outcome. It could apply to any subject in the curriculum, at any age, and any scale of achievement – the most important thing is that you demonstrate how student learning and development have been improved by the use of audio production.
Show us the impact of the audio initiative on the student or students’ work and achievement. Let us know how it helped them, how they improved at the subject. Explain how it built their confidence, improved their attainment, or increased their opportunities for further study or work.
Some inspiration and prize information here
Your entry should include:
This award will be given to the team who have made the most innovative digital and technical achievements in audio this year.
You may be a radio station, a community group, a podcast partnership, or a programme team. Your content will sound amazing, but will also be based on a some sort of technical breakthrough in digital, social, visual, engineering, software, mobile or website.
Show us that you understand the value of team work, that you and your colleagues can make better and more compelling content because of your innovative thinking, and that you’ve got the skills that make a modern radio station tick.
Your entry should include:
This award is all about podcasts. This can be a podcast on absolutely anything, it can be all about music, a drama, a comedy, a podcast about your favourite film/tv show even your favourite person we just want to hear you speak passionately about something.
Show us that you’ve got great script writing skills, brilliant performers, and great direction. Also show us any of your skills with editing, sound design and special effects. We want to see that you’re really good at getting the best out of your guests, or really good at storytelling. Make us laugh, make us cry, surprise us, educate us, show us that you know how to make it sound exciting and fresh– but most of all, make us want to keep listening, and desperate to hear more.
The entry can be from a single programme, or a series of programmes.
Your entry should include: