THE University of Chester’s Warrington campus radio station The Cat Radio has won a major national award celebrating the best in student radio.
The Cat Radio’s Student Radio Chart show picked up the Gold at the prestigious Student Radio Awards in London.
The awards were hosted at the Indigo at the 02 in London. The event is supported by BBC Radio 1 and Global Radio.
This year there were over 500 entries across 16 categories. The awards are judged by over 100 industry professionals to produce a shortlist of six nominees in each category. The nominees are then whittled down to a Bronze, Silver and Gold award winner by some of the biggest names in radio.
Student stations are invited to host the chart show each year. In March Richard Wolfenden, Michelle Homan and Craig Taphorn presented the programme which is syndicated on student stations up and down the country with Will Dell and Cat Warren producing the programme. An interview with The Voice winner of 2017, Mo Jamil, featured on the show. Mo had been a judge on The Voice 2018 and was on the television programme the night before the chart show on The Cat Radio, singing his new track.
Presenter Richard Wolfenden, 26, from Liverpool, picked up the award in London on behalf of the station and the students. He said: “I have never run down a flight of stairs as fast in my life as I did when I went to collect the award! It genuinely was a team effort. Craig Taphorn, Michelle Homan, Cat Warren and Will Dell made a brilliant team on air and behind the scenes and thanks to Michelle Ponting as well for encouraging us all to do it!”
Programme Leader Michelle Ponting said: “It was a great show put together by two great producers – Cat and Will and presented by three great talents in Richard, Michelle and Craig. This is a great achievement. I have been contacted by one of the judges who said it was the best by far…but we knew that anyway!”
Will Dell, 22, from Leeds, said: “The SRA Chart Show is a big event for us, and I had a blast co-producing it with Cat.”
Catherine Warren, 21, from Flint, North Wales, added: “Producing the SRA Chart show was incredibly fun, despite being at one of the busiest times of the academic year and that was all down to the amazing team of presenters and the ongoing help from my co-producer Will Dell and lecturer Michelle Ponting.”
Will Dell’s The Mind Guide was also nominated in the best Podcast category. The Mind Guide is a five-part podcast series all about Mental Health and Wellbeing. The Mind Guide was created to coincide mental health and wellbeing awareness week in May. The episodes were: Substance, Lifestyle Medicine, Mindfulness, Chasing the Stigma and Take a Walk. At the end of each episode, listeners were invited to join in with ’60 seconds of meditation’, to relax to some soothing sounds.
