Awards are like weather forecasts, only really enjoyable when they tell you want you want to hear. When they don't, it's easy to dismiss them as flawed, unreliable and a bit of a waste of everyone's time.
Having judged one of the big categories for this year's Sony Radio Awards - the Music Radio Personality Award, justly won by Chris Evans - I was especially interested to see what judges on other categories had decided. Glancing over the list of nominees and winners, I nodded and smiled as some of my favourites took gold medals. The Today Programme, which I regard as a treasured, curmudgeonly and regularly embarrassing old friend, won the Breakfast Show. PM, one of my desert island programmes, triumphed in the interactive category. Mark Radcliffe, who I didn't think could surpass his Radio 2 late-night programme but who has with the new show co-hosted with Stuart Maconie, took top prize for Music Programme and a bronze in the category I was judging. How useful and sensible these Sony Awards are, I found myself thinking, and how right-headed the judges have shown themselves to be this year.
Until, that is, I saw that Classic FM has won UK Station of the Year. Yes, that's right, Station of the Year, despite the fact that the only nomination it received was for the humble honour that is the Station Imaging Award, and it didn't even pick up a medal there. How can that be? Station of the Year might reward confidence and brand image, both of which Classic FM ooze, but there's clearly a disjuncture between this and the actual listening experience and judging process, which makes the Station of the Year crown look hollow at best and downright silly at worst.
I can't bear Classic FM, with its focus on the easy, the soft and the cosy, and Simon Bates for breakfast. My station of the year is Radio 2, for consistently putting radio in the headlines in a good way, and not resting on its already very successful laurels. Which station is yours?
