Station recognised at New York Radio festival.
Scratch Radio has received honours at the 2015 New York Radio Festival. The NYF’s International Radio Program Awards for The World’s Best Radio Programs “honors radio programming from radio stations, networks and independent producers from around the globe”, and are seen as the Oscars of the radio industry.
Scratch Radio was presented with the International Silver Award in the Best Student Radio Station category. This follows the station’s success in winning the “Midlands” category of the 2014 UK Radio Academy’s Nations and Regions Awards.
Meanwhile, recent graduate Emma Boyle has won the Bronze award in the Best Student Journalist category for her investigative documentary series The Student Underworld.
Neil Hollins, a radio lecturer at BCU who works closely with students broadcasting on the station, went along to New York to pick up the award.
He said: “It’s fantastic to see students getting recognition for their work on Scratch Radio. Getting involved in the station offers them a very meaningful opportunity to develop their production and presentation skills as well as learning about station management. I’m proud to be able to pick up this award on their behalf.”
Emma also travelled with Neil to New York to pick up her trophy at the awards ceremony, held at the Manhattan Penthouse.
She said: “I feel incredibly privileged to have my work recognised by the New York Festivals and I certainly would not have received this honour without the guidance of my former teachers.
“I greatly appreciate the support of the University to enable me to travel to New York to collect the award as an ambassador of Birmingham School of Media. This is a milestone achievement on my CV and will undoubtedly highlight my capabilities as a media professional to future employers.”
This was the first year the NYF awards have awarded prizes in a new series of student radio categories.
Rose Anderson, Executive Director of the New York Festivals, believes that these new categories are a valuable way for students to gain confidence in their abilities and enhance their employability:
“One of the things that we feel very strongly about is the importance of having student work judged by the same Grand Jury members as professional created submissions. So, in this regard, student work is being listened to by award winning radio professionals around the world, which is a nice validation, I think, of the art form of radio”
Other Birmingham City University graduate students nominated as finalists this year were Sophie Sparham in the Best Innovation category and Paul Hunt for Best Student Drama Programme.