Year: 2025

Nominees for the British Podcast Awards 2025 have been announced, and BBC Radio 4’s Today host Emma Barnett has been named as Chair of Judges this year.

Speaking about her new role, Emma said: “I’m delighted to champion this brilliant, bold medium as Chair of Judges for the British Podcast Awards 2025, and to celebrate the voices shaping the Great British Podcasting scene.”
Over 200 nominees have been shortlisted across 26 categories, with David Tennant is recognised for Best Host(s), while Louis Theroux earns nods for both Best Host(s) and Interview for The Louis Theroux Podcast.
Pete Wicks and Sam Thompson’s Staying Relevant is nominated for Video Innovation, as is Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver’s Miss Me?. Angela Hartnett and Nick Grimshaw also land a Best Host(s) nomination.
Jordan North and William Hanson’s Help I Sexted My Boss picks up Comedy, Entertainment, and Video Innovation nominations, while Ed Gamble’s The Traitors: Uncloaked earns the BBC an Entertainment nod.
Vogue Williams and Amber Wilson’s Vogue & Amber competes in Entertainment and Paula Radcliffe’s Marathon Run Club is recognised in Sport.
Voting is now open for the Listeners’ Choice category, the only British Podcast Award decided by the public.
You can cast your vote at britishpodcastawards.com/voting until 29th August.
Winners will be announced at the awards ceremony hosted by comedian Maisie Adam on Thursday 2nd October at Indigo at The O2, London.
Tickets for the awards ceremony are on sale now.
British Podcast Awards 2025 – Full Shortlist 
Arts & Culture
Facing the Music – Overcoat Media for BBC Radio 3
Folk on Foot – Potholder Productions Ltd
Intersections: Los Angeles – Rethink Audio Ltd
Sonic Fields – Freelance Sam Tyler
Soul Music – BBC Audio Bristol for BBC Radio 4
The Lost Archives of James Baldwin – Sea Salt and Mango
Best Host(s)
Angela Hartnett and Nick Grimshaw – Cold Glass Productions
Dan Snow – History Hit
David Tennant – Sony Music Entertainment & No Mystery
Femi Oke – Audible
Helen Pidd – The Guardian
Louis Theroux – Mindhouse Productions in collaboration with Spotify
Luke Jones – Audio Always
Zak and Jules – Prison Radio Association
Business
Grounded: A Climate Startup Journey – Restord
Money Talks – The Economist
The Daybreak Europe Podcast – Bloomberg
The Factory Next Door – The Factory Next Door
The Third Angle – 18Sixty Ltd
The Times Tech Podcast – The Times
Wedding Pros Who are Ready to Grow – BeccaPountney.com
Comedy
Elis James and John Robins – Audio Always for BBC Radio 5 Live
Where There’s a Will, There’s a Wake – Sony Music Entertainment
Sound Heap – Lead Mojo
The Skewer – An Unusual production for BBC Radio 4
This Paranormal Life – R&K Media
Help I Sexted My Boss – Audio Always
Daily
Newscast – BBC News
The Daybreak Europe Podcast – Bloomberg
The Intelligence/The Weekend Intelligence – The Economist
The News Agents – Global
The Story – The Times and The Sunday Times
Today in Focus – The Guardian
Yoto Daily – Yoto
Documentary
Cursed – Audible
Dead Man Running -A BBC Scotland production for BBC Sounds
Intrigue: To Catch a Scorpion –  BBC Studios Audio Production for BBC Radio 4
Sergei & the Westminster Spy Ring – The Citizens
Stalked – BBC Studios Audio Production for BBC Sounds and Radio 5 Live
The Trapped – ITN
Education
Fun Kids Science Weekly – Fun Kids
Hold Or Fold – Prison Radio Association
LSE iQ – London School of Economics and Political Science
What’s Your Map? with Jerry Brotton – Whistledown Productions
Entertainment
Elis James and John Robins – Audio Always for BBC Radio 5 Live
Help I Sexted My Boss – Audio Always
Inbetween Man – Improvise Event Limited
The Guilty Feminist – The Spontaneity Shop Enterprises
The Traitors: Uncloaked – Platform Media/Listen for BBC Sounds
This Paranormal Life – R&K Media
Vogue & Amber – Global
Factual
Babbage – The Economist
Believe in People: Addiction, Recovery & Stigma – Change Grow Live (ReNew)
Beyond Five Senses – Kinda Studios
In Dark Corners series 2 – BBC Audio Scotland for Radio 4
Sergei & the Westminster Spy Ring – The Citizens
The Coming Storm (series 2) – BBC Long Form Audio production for BBC Radio 4.
Waterlands – 18Sixty
Fiction
Broken Veil – Cheese & Pickle Productions
COLD TAPES – Free Turn & Wondery
Limelight: Discretion – Hat Trick Productions for BBC Radio 4
Last Dance – Blackabbey Productions
Limelight: Money Gone – Naked Productions for BBC Radio 4
The Mysterious Affair at Styles – A Poirot Mystery’ – Audible
Limelight: The Skies Are Watching – Goldhawk Productions for BBC Radio 4
This Paranormal Life – R&K Media
Health & Wellbeing
Echoes of Harm – WeissComm Partners
Hack your Body, Heal your Mind – Audible
Inbetween Man – Improvise Event
Jon Holmes Says The C Word –  An unusual production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds
My life with dementia – Dementia UK
Why Mums Don’t Jump – Helen Ledwick
History
Assume Nothing: Killer Dust – BBC NI for BBC Radio 4
Sing it Pink – Aunt Nell
The Guernsey Deportees – OG Podcasts
The History Podcast – The Brighton Bomb – Walk on Air Films for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds
The Spy Who – Wondery
Titanic: Ship of Dreams – Noiser
Weird in the Wade – Weird in the Wade
Impact
A Slice of Bread and Butter – The Bread and Butter Thing
Movers & Shakers: a podcast about life with Parkinson’s – RCJ Media
Oceans: Life Under Water – Crowd Network
On the Side of Humanity – Amnesty International
QueerAF – QueerAF CIC
The Culture Colonel – BFBS
Shadow World: The Willpower Detectives – BBC Studios Production for BBC Radio 4
Interview
Believe in People: Addiction, Recovery & Stigma – Change Grow Live (ReNew)
Everything I Know About Me – DMG Podcasts
OUTCAST WORLD – 7th Planet Media Services
The Hidden 20% – The Hidden 20%
The Louis Theroux Podcast – Mindhouse Productions in collaboration with Spotify
The News Agents – Special episode: Inside the murky world of Facebook – Global
Widowed AF – WIDOWED AF
Kids
Checkpoint Kids Bedtime Stories – Magdoos Media
Evie Asks… How Are You? – Audio Always
The Conversation’s Curious Kids – The Conversation UK
The Hey Duggee Pupcast – Chalk and Blade for Cbeebies and BBC Sounds
The Reading Cafe – The Reading Cafe
Yoto Daily – Yoto
Lifestyle
Beyond Five Senses – Kinda Studios
Brown Girls Do It Too: Big Boy Energy – A BBC Radio 5 Live commission for BBC Sounds
DNA Trail: The Promise – BBC Local Audio for BBC Sounds
Life After Prison – Prison Radio Association
Melting Pot – BBC Audio North for BBC Sounds Audio Lab
Not Even Water – BBC Asian Network
This Is Powerful – Sound & Bones
Network or Publisher
BBC World Service
Fun Kids
Global
History Hit
Prison Radio Association
Sony Music Entertainment
Wondery
New Podcast
Because the Boss Belongs to Us – Molten Heart
Hold Or Fold – Prison Radio Association
Inbetween Man – Improvise Event
Journeys with Grace – Journeys with Grace
RadioTherapy – RadioTherapy
Strangers on a Bench – The Pleasant Trees
Words Unravelled with RobWords and Jess Zafarris – RobWords
News & Current Affairs
Business Daily – BBC News
Intrigue: To Catch a Scorpion –  BBC Studios Audio Production for BBC Radio 4
Newscast – BBC News
Sergei & the Westminster Spy Ring – The Citizens
The BelTel – Mediahuis UK
The Coming Storm (series 2) – BBC Long Form Audio production for BBC Radio 4.
Who Killed Emma? – BBC Scotland for BBC Sounds
Parenting
Dear Daughter – BBC World Service
Happy Mum Happy Baby – Pixiu Productions
How To Feed with Charlotte Stirling-Reed – Pod60
Momfessions – Mind Mommy Coaching
Secret Mum Club with Sophiena – Audio Always
Still Parents Podcast – Lily Mae Foundation
The Apple & The Tree – DMG Podcasts
Two New Mums – Venny
Rising Star (sponsored by Secret Media Network)
Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty – BBC News and BBC Sounds
Clodagh Stenson – BBC Local for BBC Sounds
Marnie Duke – Transmission Roundhouse
Mia Thornton – BBC Audio Labs
Toni Tone – Audio Always
Sex & Relationships
A Gay And A Nongay – A Gay And A Nongay
All Out with Jon Dean – GIMME VIDEO
Criminally Queer: The Bolton 7 – A Reduced Listening production for BBC Sounds Audio Lab
Sex in Space – String Theory
The Affair… with Anna Williamson – Curve Mesia
The Divorce Podcast – E-Negotiation
Sport
F1 Explains – Formula 1
For The Love Of Rugby – Crowd Network
How To Be Superhuman – Podcast Discovery
Paula’s Marathon Run Club – Viral Tribe Entertainment
The Game – The Times and Sunday Times
The Sports Agents – Global
The Upshot – Footwork Media
True Crime
Beyond Suspision – Audible
Cocaine Inc. – The Times and The Sunday Times
Dead Man Running – A BBC Scotland production for BBC Sounds
Intrigue: To Catch a Scorpion –  BBC Studios Audio Production for BBC Radio 4
Kill List – Wondery
Assume Nothing: Murder at the Stables – BBC NI
Shadow World: Thief at the British Museum –  – BBC News Long Form Audio Production for BBC Radio 4
Stalked – BBC Studios Audio Production for BBC Sounds and 5 Live
Video Innovation – sponsored by Canon
Access All: Disability News and Mental Health – BBC
Help I Sexted My Boss – Audio Always
Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley – StoryHunter for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds
Miss Me? – A Persephonica production for BBC Sounds
Radio Atlas – Radio Atlas
Staying Relevant – Staying Relevant Productions
Welsh Language
Lleisiau Cymru: 1 Mewn 2 – BBC Radio Cymru
Sgwrsio – Sgwrsio
Siarad Siop efo Mari a Meilir – Meilir Rhys Williams
Yr Hen Iaith – Podlediad Yr Hen Iaith

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Aberdeen’s Original 106 was live from the city’s harbour last weekend to cover The Tall Ships Races where 400,000 people were expected to visit.

Broadcasting from land, sea, and helicopter, the station covered the moment the first vessels arrived on Friday, and there were outside broadcasts live from the quayside on Saturday and again on Tuesday.
The coverage ended on Tuesday morning with Claire & Pete’s breakfast show live from the docks, as the ships prepared to depart for the next leg of the race to Norway.
Craig Lumsden, Programme Controller at Original 106, who coordinated and produced the live coverage, said: “This was a huge technical undertaking — covering an event of this scale across multiple platforms and locations with relatively limited resources.
“But the team rose to the challenge and pulled it off seamlessly. I couldn’t be prouder of what we achieved.”

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Bobby Norris is joining Kube Media Group’s breakfast show as a new co-presenter from Monday 28th July.

The show will air across Essex Hits, Fresh Hits, Pop Hits and Total Hits, with Bobby joining Hawa Kassam, who has previously worked across Heart, MKFM, and Made In Kent Radio, as well as in podcasting and TV presenting.
Bobby is known for appearing in The Only Way Is Essex and has also featured on shows including Celebs Go Dating, Celebrity Ghost Hunt, Celebs on the Farm, and Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.
He has presented radio since 2020 on FUBAR Radio’s Access All Areas, interviewing celebrities and sharing entertainment news.
Away from entertainment, Bobby led the “Bobby’s Bill” campaign against online homophobic abuse, which helped shape the Online Safety Bill now in UK law.
Speaking about his new role, Bobby said: “I am absolutely buzzing to be joining the Kube Media family and co-hosting the brand-new Breakfast Show with Hawa.
“Getting to wake up with listeners across the country, have a laugh, play amazing music, and chat about real life – it’s honestly a dream come true.”
Hawa Kassam added: “I’m so excited to be joining forces with Bobby. His energy is infectious, and I just know our listeners are in for a fun, unfiltered, feel-good start to the day.”
Kube Media Group CEO, James Jones, said: “Bobby Norris is a brilliant talent; he brings star power, humour and a deeply authentic connection to our audience. We’re beyond excited to welcome him to our stations.”

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In these times of political and economic uncertainty, Radiocentre’s CEO Matt Payton writes about the power of industry collaboration in navigating the challenges.

So far 2025 has been almost as unpredictable as many of us predicted. The political world remains in a state of flux. The economic outlook is uncertain, even with the potential advantage of new trade deals designed to insulate the UK from Trump’s tariffs. For its part, media and advertising is also going through a period of intense and accelerating change, with budgets under pressure and the drive towards ever greater automation and integration of AI.
Against this backdrop it’s all the more important for a sector like radio and audio to work together and fight its corner. Fortunately, we are an industry that understands the power of collaboration and knows that it has a good story to tell. At Radiocentre we see that day in, day out on all sorts of initiatives, whether it is working together to support the growth in advertising revenues or co-ordinating lobbying campaigns to help the industry continue to thrive.
For example, earlier this year we were pleased to get confirmation from Ofcom that the BBC will be prevented from launching a new Radio 2 spin-off service, with more than a passing resemblance to existing commercial stations such as Boom Radio, due to concerns we raised over its impact on competition. Separately the BBC was also forced to withdraw plans to start running advertising on its podcasts on third-party platforms like Spotify and Apple.
We welcomed these decisions not because of some sort of anti-BBC agenda, but because they risked damaging the UK audio sector and diverting away as much as £50m a year in much needed investment. With the BBC Charter Review expected to kick off in earnest later this year, these debates may well be the shape of things to come. The BBC has a really important role to play in audio and its most distinctive content simply couldn’t be provided by the commercial sector in the same way. But as we demonstrated in our recent report A Force for Good, there is also significant public value generated by commercial radio that should be nurtured, supported and insulated from the damaging effects of BBC expansionism across audio.
Alongside all this we will continue to work together to push for the best possible environment for radio and audio to grow. This means supporting the government’s mission to tackle unnecessary regulation and burdens on business, including resisting detailed operational quotas on news production from Ofcom and simplifying terms & conditions in financial advertising.
Innovation and investment in audio has also continued at pace in 2025. Bauer’s digital audio advertising product AudioXi was launched in the UK earlier this year and is now fully operational, providing agencies and advertisers with an effective way of reaching connected audiences. Alongside this Global’s DAX also continues to develop its offering, enabling advertisers to target a range of audience groups across digital audio platforms, from live radio and podcasts to streaming and gaming.
At Tuning In North in Manchester in March, Radiocentre launched a new report Speed of Sound, with the consultancy MTM. This highlights the benefits for advertisers of using this kind of multi-platform audio and why broadcasters (representing 90% of ad-funded audio listening) remain the key to unlocking those benefits, whatever your campaign objectives.
We are kicking off the second half of 2025 with a new advertising campaign aimed at brands and advertising agencies to highlight the benefits of investing in radio and audio. We want to thank our member stations who have got behind the campaign, supporting it on air and calling on advertisers to ‘amplify’ their advertising with radio. Arguably, we have more publicly available effectiveness data than any other medium, and the campaign is a great way to dial up this evidence.
We’re now in the process of pulling together even more evidence of the benefits of using multi-platform audio, with new research examining return-on-investment and effectiveness. The plan is to unveil the findings, along with many more highlights at our annual Tuning In event on 23rd September at Kings Place in London. It will be hosted once more by Tyler West from KISS, who will be joined by special guests and speakers from across media and advertising. Registration is open now and free for brands, agencies and member stations to attend. I look forward to seeing you there.

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BBC Radio Wales producer and presenter Lynda Shahwan has died following a car accident while on holiday in Canada with her family.

Lynda, aged 53 and from Heath in Cardiff, worked at BBC Radio Wales for over 25 years. She created and co-presented Terry Walton’s Plotcast, a podcast exploring gardening life on a Rhondda hillside.
Gardening expert Terry Walton paid tribute, saying: “We pass our sympathies on to Lynda’s husband Sharif, their two sons and all of the family on the tragic and sudden taking of Lynda from us far too soon.
“My last two years of working with Lynda on the Plotcast were the most fulfilling and cherished broadcasting I have done.
“Our chemistry and her creative talent made every episode a gem of gardening knowledge. Her professionalism and easy going manner made every recording a pleasure and brought the best out of us both.
“We became true friends and after recording we would both relax and discuss many aspects of life.”
Head of BBC Radio Wales Carolyn Hitt described Lynda as “a very special person” who made a brilliant impact on the station since joining in 1999.
For many years, Lynda was known to Roy Noble’s morning listeners as ‘The Lily from Caerphilly’ and more recently returned to co-present the Plotcast, described as her passion project.
Carolyn added: “We are all devastated at the sudden loss of our much-loved colleague and friend. Our hearts go out to Lynda’s husband Sharif – also a valued colleague – their two sons, family, and friends. Her creativity, kindness and care will never be forgotten.”

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Former Dearne FM and Trax FM breakfast presenter Matt Foister is returning to Barnsley as the launch presenter for the new Barnsley Radio Breakfast Show.

Matt, who has also worked as Executive Producer for Gemma Atkinson and Mike Toolan on Hits Radio, will launch the show on 1st September.
Barnsley Radio is a new local commercial station for the town and will be available via Smart Speakers, mobile app, online, and through RadioPlayer.
The team has also confirmed plans to expand onto DAB in the future, broadening its reach across South Yorkshire.
Programme Director Stewart Nicholson said: “We are so excited to bring back a fun and exciting local commercial breakfast show back to Barnsley. Matt’s energy and love for the area make him the perfect fit to launch Barnsley Radio.”

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