AWARDS PROGRAMME
The Telkom Radio Awards honours outstanding achievements in the South African radio industry, and sets a benchmark for all radio stations and professionals to strive towards. The Telkom Radio Awards programme is dedicated to fairness and integrity and is focused on being a credible, well-judged transparent programme that recognises exceptional and innovative excellence in South African radio.
It’s about rewarding those individuals and stations who combine talent, hard work and skill to ensure that their listeners are compelled. The Telkom Radio Awards seeks to motivate the radio industry to constantly strive for greatness in terms of their performance, with a firm focus on keeping their listener engaged and entertained.
This secures the station’s future with the advantage of knowing that they are amongst the best of the best in an increasingly competitive landscape. Since the inception of these awards in 2010, there has been substantial growth in the number of entries and participating stations. Industry feedback has played an important role in the progress of these awards.
We respect the achievements of the many talented men and women in the radio industry and are proud to continue recognising and honouring South Africa’s outstanding radio talent, from in-front-of-the mic presenters to behind-the-scenes producers. In doing so, we aim to ensure that radio remains one of South Africa’s foremost media choices.
JUDGING PROCESS
Each year, judges for the Telkom Radio Awards are chosen based on their relevant expertise. When selecting judges, vernacular or language variety is taken into account to ensure that the panel reflects the industry’s linguistic diversity. These carefully selected judges volunteer countless hours of their time to assess the station entries.
The general categories are split between various judges who work independently to score each submission on its merits. With many of the judges coming from the radio industry, organisers have made certain that categories and duties are assigned in such a way that no conflicts of interest arise (for example, no judge with a vested interest in a commercial station will be allowed to judge commercial station entries, and the same refers to PBS, Community and Campus).
Judges are required to score each entry in its entirety, subject to the entry’s conformity with the rules. Judging will be based solely on the entry submitted, in an independent and objective manner and not on the programmes aired throughout the year. If it isn’t in the entry, it isn’t being judged.
The scores are entered into an online system and averaged for complete fairness. No single adjudicator has the ability to influence the results. Each judge enters their own scores and is unaware of the scores assigned by the other adjudicators.
A professional audit firm audits these results. From the judging, the top entries are shortlisted as finalists for each category. Each category’s overall winner is chosen from among the finalists and announced at the Awards gala dinner.
#TelkomRadioAwards
