News Archive

Kinderling Kids Radio wins Best Digital Radio award

9 October 2016

The Australian radio industry’s premier award for the best digital radio station has been taken out by Kinderling Kids Radio at the 28th Australian Commercial Radio Awards (ACRAs) held tonight at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. In front of more than 1200 radio industry attendees, creator of the innovative station, Evan Kaldor collected the award for:

BEST DIGITAL RADIO FORMAT
Kinderling Kids Radio; Evan Kaldor, Patrick Joyce, Lorna Clarkson, Tim Ritchie, Kylie Little, Shevonne Hunt, Sally Knight, Jason Treuen, Max Gosford, Melanie Valkenburg - Southern Cross Austereo

In other awards tonight, Kate Ritchie, Tim Blackwell and Marty Sheargold, hosts of the NOVA Network national drive show, have won the Best On Air Team (Metro FM), at the 28^th annual Australian Commercial Radio Awards (ACRA) announced this evening at a gala black tie event at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. Kate, Tim and Marty who started on air as a team in January 2014 are Australia’s number one drive team and last year took out the ACRA for Best Networked Program.

The Metropolitan Best On Air Team AM award went to 2GB’s Nights with Steve Price. Macquarie radio presenter and regular panellist on The Project, Steve has been in journalism for more than 30 years, and is joined every night on the program by opinion maker Andrew Bolt, as they review the news and current affairs. For the fifth year running, one of Australia’s most experienced journalists; 3AW’s Neil Mitchell has taken out the Best Current Affairs Presenter award. Best Talk Presenter was taken out for the third year by 2GB’s Ben Fordham and the show’s producer, Harriet Glenn won Best Talk/Current Affairs Producer.

Sam Pang (Nova 100 Melbourne) is this year’s winner of the Best Newcomer On Air gong. Sam is a member of the Nova Melbourne breakfast team with Chrissie Swan and Jonathan Brown and as a team they also won the Best Station Produced Comedy Segment . Hit Network’s Hamish and Andy (Hamish Blake and Andy Lee) won the ACRA for Best Networked Program. Smallzy (Kent Small) host of Smallzy’s Surgery on the Nova Network, took home the ACRA for Best Music or Entertainment Presenter. Jonesy & Amanda (Amanda Keller and Brendan Jones) WSFM101.7 Sydney breakfast duo, took out best Syndicated Program for their national weekly show My Generation.

Melissa Doyle and Richard Wilkins presenters on the night, picked up the Best Musical Special award on behalf of the entire smoothfm team for the Top 500 Smooth Favourites Countdown (smoothfm, NOVA Entertainment).
Winners in other major awards announced were:

Best News Presenter FM – Ange Anderson (Nova 106.9 Brisbane)
Best News Presenter AM – Anne Stone (FIVEaa, Adelaide NOVA Entertainment)
Best Sports Presenter – Tim Lane (3AW, Macquarie Radio Network)

Lisa Barnes from 6PR, Perth (Macquarie Media Limited) won the Brian White Memorial award which recognises sustained achievement and effort across news, current affairs, entertainment and sports reporting. The award includes a fellowship exchange with Mediacorp, Singapore’s largest broadcaster.

Cathy O’Connor, chief executive officer of Nova Entertainment who this year celebrates 31 years in the radio industry was inducted into the Commercial Radio Hall of Fame for her outstanding achievement and contribution to the radio broadcasting industry. One of Australia's sole female chief executives of a stand-alone major media company, Cathy heads Nova Entertainment which is wholly owned by IIyria Nominees Television, a private investment company of Lachlan Murdoch. (Full details in a separate release.)

Chief executive officer of Commercial Radio Australia, Joan Warner said: “Congratulations to all this year’s winners. Each year, recipients of these awards continue to excel and consistently deliver on providing outstanding radio for millions of listeners throughout the country.”

Entries were received from 260 metropolitan and regional radio stations across Australia. Stations outside the metropolitan areas are well represented at the ACRAs with more than 200 finalists from country and provincial stations.

Organised by Commercial Radio Australia, the national Awards cover 33 categories. Winners are announced in each category across three areas: metropolitan, provincial and country commercial radio stations, and encompass all areas of commercial radio broadcasting including news, talk, sport, music and entertainment. The ACRAs differ from television’s Logie Awards in that they are peer judged by industry members.
A complete list of the 2016 ACRAs finalists follows & is available on the CRA website: www.commercialradio.com.au