Thursday 21st June - Broadcast Digital Awards

Just back from an interesting evening at the Broadcast Digital Awards. LEONARDO LIVE had been nominated for an award as best live show of last year which was, frankly, pretty generous as not everything went smoothly on the night. But, as I’ve said before, juries are very random beasts and obviously they had enjoyed the show and were happy to overlook some of the glitches. Plus it was a TV/Cinema ‘first’ and there aren’t really that many of those around.

So… to the Lancaster Hotel where a sea of middle-aged men in black (yep, including me though no dicky bow!) and a very glamourous younger crowd of women gathered in the hope of a gong to adorn a mantelpiece somewhere. Let me state straightaway that I love winning awards - and consider them irrelevant when we don’t…. But there are so many now it’s hard to keep track and also hard to know which are the most valuable. Frankly, it’s much of a muchness – but any award is good news for the broadcaster concerned and offers a stamp of success. Anything thus that helps secure the next commission has to be useful. On the other hand, were those tables really £3000+ a pop?? Good lord – there were 49 tables so do the maths…. I think I might start a few awards ceremonies myself and hold them in my lounge. Or maybe just sell the laurel leaves for producers to fling liberally over their DVD covers. That’s what we do! I’ve won dozens of awards – has it helped? Not much.

So what were we up against and did we win?

Radio 1's Big Weekend Lady Gaga Live, BBC Productions for BBC Three

The FA Cup Final, IMG Sports Media for ESPN

The World Sheepdog Trials, North One TV for More 4

Tour de France 2011, V Squared for ITV4

World Match Racing Tour, Red Handed TV for multiple broadcasters

My vote went to the Tour de France coverage which is super. The jury’s vote went to ….The FA Cup. Never mind, the nomination (our second for Leonardo Live) was nice. The highlight though of the night was the comedian Greg Davies who was superb. The lowlight was the British rail service…..