Winners – 36th BPG Television and Radio Awards

The BBC Two political satire The Thick of It has won three top prizes at the 36^th annual Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, voted for by those who write about TV and radio. The Awards will be presented later today at a lunch at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.   (Full list of winners below.)

Peter Capaldi has been named best actor for his performance as Malcolm Tucker. Armando Iannucci and the writing team have won the Writer’s Award and the series also won the prize for Best Comedy/Entertainment show.

Sir Terry Wogan – who stepped down from his Radio 2 breakfast show Wake Up to Wogan in December – will receive the Harvey Lee Award for an Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting, for his career on radio and TV.

Choirmaster Gareth Malone has won two awards – as Best TV Performer in a Non-acting Role, and for The Choir: Unsung Town, which was named best Factual Entertainment show.

And there are two awards for Sky Arts – the multichannel award, for Sky Arts Theatre Live!, and the innovation award, for its pioneering work in showcasing the best of the contemporary and classical arts, much of it in high definition.

The BPG awards are being presented at a lunch today (Friday) at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The lunch has a new sponsor this year – Dave, the “home of witty banter”, one of ten channels broadcast by leading multi-channel operator UKTV: http://www.joindave.co.uk <http://www.joindave.co.uk/> . The invitation-only ceremony will be attended by the winners and leading broadcasting executives.

Maxine Peake will be there to receive her award as best actress, for her roles in two BBC One dramas, as Juliet Miller in Criminal Justice and Madeleine in The Street.

The BBC Four drama Enid, about the life of Enid Blyton, is named best single drama – and will be shown on BBC One at 9pm this coming Sunday.  BBC One’s Occupation won the award for best drama series. Actors from both productions will be attending the lunch.

Andrew Marr’s The Making of Modern Britain has won the award for best documentary series, while the best single documentary prize goes to BBC Two’s Man on Wire, about Philippe Petit’s daring high-wire act between New York’s Twin Towers.

Radio 4 has won both radio awards. Desert Island Discs has been named radio programme of the year and Kirsty Young will pick up the award.  PM’s Eddie Mair will receive the award as radio broadcaster of the year.

BBC programmes dominated this year’s BPG awards, winning 12 of the 15 prizes.

The awards are sponsored by Dave, part of UKTV.  Its Channel Head, Steve North, said: “Dave is delighted to be sponsoring this year’s Broadcasting Press Guild awards. We are committed to commissioning and acquiring high quality, innovative, genre-defining programmes that resonate with our audience – all qualities that the BPG recognises.”

For more information, or to send a photographer, reporter or crew, please contact:

Torin Douglas, Broadcasting Press Guild

07860 422992

Editor’s notes:

1.       The Broadcasting Press Guild was founded in 1974 and has more than a hundred members – all journalists who specialise in writing and broadcasting about television, radio and the media in general. They include media correspondents, reviewers, previewers and feature writers from the major national newspapers, broadcasters and leading trade journals.

2.       Harvey Lee was a leading light of the BPG, who died at the tragically early age of 41, and the award for outstanding achievement has been given in his memory every year since 1992.

3.       Details of the nominations, previous BPG Awards and the event sponsor, Dave, “the home of witty banter”, can be found at: http://www.broadcastingpressguild.org/ <http://www.broadcastingpressguild.org/> , together with pictures and video of previous awards ceremonies and more on the history of the Harvey Lee Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting Award.

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The full list of winners is:

Best Single Drama

Enid

(A Carnival Films and Television production for BBC Four)

Best Drama Series

Occupation

(A Kudos Film & Television production for BBC One)

Best Single Documentary

Man on Wire

(A Wall To Wall production, in association with Red Box Films, for BBC, Discovery Films and the UK Film Council, for BBC Two)

Best Documentary Series

Andrew Marr’s The Making of Modern Britain (A BBC production for BBC Two)

Best Comedy/Entertainment

The Thick of It

(A BBC production for BBC Two)

Best Factual Entertainment

The Choir: Unsung Town

(A Twenty Twenty Television production for BBC Two)

Best Multichannel Programme

Sky Arts Theatre Live!

(A Sky Arts Theatre Live! production for Sky Arts)

Best Actor

Peter Capaldi

(Malcolm Tucker, in The Thick of It for BBC Two)

Best Actress

Maxine Peake

(Juliet Miller in Criminal Justice and Madeleine in The Street, for BBC One)

Best TV Performer in a Non-acting Role

Gareth Malone for The Choir: Unsung Town

(A Twenty Twenty Television production for BBC Two)

Writer’s Award

Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Roger Drew, Will Smith, Sean Gray, Armando Iannucci, Ian Martin, Tony Roche and the cast (The Thick of It, a BBC production for BBC Two)

Radio Broadcaster of the Year

Eddie Mair

(The PM Programme, BBC News for BBC Radio 4)

Radio Programme of the Year

Desert Island Discs

(A BBC Radio production for BBC Radio 4)

Innovation Award

Sky Arts

Harvey Lee Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting

Sir Terry Wogan