The inaugural Most Promising Radio Newcomer award

JDee

Brian McColl coaches new talent, he encourages new talent and he puts on workshops for upcoming new radio talent. And now he wants to award it. Great idea.

From his blog:

Around this time of year, radio stations are working behind the scenes gathering audio and writing scripts for their entry to the PPI awards.

Good luck to all.

I was scanning the list of categories and noticed one missing...one very close to my heart.

That is - an award for the Most Promising Newcomer.

In my opinion, the people who are the future of radio in this country need not only recognition - but support from their peers. This is a tough industry to make your mark in.You need the talent, the luck and a pretty thick skin to get places. We have a wealth of new talent in Ireland on the air. They are working evenings and weekends, doing fill-in shifts here and there and generally doing whatever it takes to get that all important 'foot in the door'.
So, I'm wondering - would it be a good idea to recognise these newcomers somehow?

I feel it would be.

What I plan is a sort of award - nothing on the scale of the PPI Awards (I can't stretch that far I'm afraid)! But an award none the less. What do you think? I'm looking at presenters with two years experience or less. They could work in local, community, voluntary or commercial radio - doesn't matter. A mic is a mic as far as I'm concerned. Details will be worked out within the next week, but basically it would involve a presenter presenting their audio and that audio then handed over to a panel of professional radio people (presenters, programming etc) from various stations across the country. These people will then have a vote on who they feel is the best 'newcomer'.

Look at it two ways:

1. It's a nice 'lift' for the presenters involved and
2. It's a great way to get your audio heard by people with influence.

You can share your thoughts by using the reply section here or email me

brian@bmacmedia.com

I'm looking at getting the whole thing kicked off properly by next week.

Cheers for your time,

Brian.

deadhead13

JDee wrote: »

Brian McColl coaches new talent, he encourages new talent and he puts on workshops for upcoming new radio talent. And now he wants to award it. Great idea.

From his blog:

I struggling to think of one newcomer, nevermind a promising one. As for the PPI awards, past winners include Colm and JimJim, Fergal Keane, Eamon Keane, Des Cahill, Oisin Langan, Jerry O'Sullivan, Orla Barry and Adrian Kennedy. So forgive me for not really taking it seriously.

fm 1

Keep up the good work Brian i think community radio should have it's own awards night outside the ppi night and you might be the man to kick it off

monkeyfudge

fm 1 wrote: »

Keep up the good work Brian i think community radio should have it's own awards night outside the ppi night and you might be the man to kick it off

We do. And have so for about 2 or so years now.

http://craol.ie/cms/uploads/Awards2009s.shtml

fm 1

I did not know that best of luck for this year

JDee

Latest from http://bmacmedia.blogspot.com/



Finally - thanks to everyone for the feedback regarding our Best New Presenter Award...we will begin accepting audio from next week. The website is ready to roll as well: http://www.bestnewpresenter.ie/
More info and updates about this on the weekly Ezine and here on the blog in the lead up to the launch.

Thanks for all of your enquiries regarding the Award for Best New Irish Radio Presenter.

Here's the latest:

The website is almost ready to go 'live'.

We have the five judges confirmed.

Rules and Regs have been sorted.

One question I received: "Will it cost"? Great question.The answer is 'No'. Entry to this award is free.

So, if you want to get a head start on things, here are three things you will need to know.

1. Audio can be no longer than three minutes duration.
2. Audio needs to be encoded as 128k stereo MP3 files. Your audio can be uploaded directly from the 'Entry' page on the site.
3. The competition is open to anyone with up to two years continuous experience behind a mic on any radio station on the island of Ireland.

That's it for now.

As I say, entries will be taken when the website goes 'live' (special thanks to DAP for all the help putting the website together).

nessymon

Thumbs up to Brian for putting this in motion!

JDee

The website is now live, best of luck to all



http://www.bestnewpresenter.ie/

tSubh Dearg

I'm locking this for the moment. I think JDee that you should've declared your interest in this at the beginning as it's clear that you work for Brian McColl and this thread is starting to read like an advertisement.

However, some of the information provided is interesting and that is why I am not deleting the thread.