The 2018 New York Festivals Radio Awards celebrated the World’s Best Radio Programs on June 19th in New York City. NYF’s Radio Awards shines the spotlight on exceptional radio content in all lengths and formats and across all platforms from radio stations, networks and independent producers.

Prominent award-winning, producers, directors, presenters and content creators from around the globe took to the stage to accept their trophies and celebrate their success.

London’s TBI Media was in the spotlight earning both the title of Production Company of the Year and the Grand Award for their winning program “Born This Way.” Both TBI Media and BBC Radio 2 received some of the highest honors in NYF’s Radio Awards competition awarded that evening.

“Born This Way”, presented by actor Andrew Scott (Moriarty in Sherlock and Bond Villain in Spectre), chronicles the story of how gay people transformed pop culture over the past 50 years.

Your private life… policed. Your way of life… against the law. That was the chilling reality for countless gay people in the UK until The Sexual Offences Act was passed in 1967. To mark its 50th Anniversary, a two-part documentary ‘Born This Way’ was broadcast on BBC Radio 2.

“Born This Way” had unique challenges, first being to deliver the narrative in a journalistic accurate but respectful way, while ensuring the program was entertaining throughout. It was paramount that the series appealed to both members of the LGBT community and the casual listener. The program also had to offer new thought and reflection to the topic. TBI Media achieved this by recording over 30 hours of interviews, with an emphasis on the first-hand accounts of era-defining super-producers and LGBT musicians themselves.

All the interviews were punctuated with a carefully selected non-stop soundtrack woven into a seamless mix, setting the scene for each decade covered and showcasing the huge influence gay culture had on the UK charts.

“The TBI team are thrilled with this year’s results in New York. 9 Finalists leading to a Grand Award, 2 Golds, 2 Silvers and a Bronze are great,” said Phil Critchlow CEO / Founder – TBI Media.

“To then be ‘Independent Producer Of The Year’ again is fantastic. This is fundamentally down to the inspired team I’m lucky enough to work with having world class ideas and being given the chance to broadcast them on great platforms. It’s clear that the opportunities for audio producers globally have changed dramatically, even since the last NYF awards, and it’s inspiring to see so many producers and platforms winning awards this year who are clearly thriving as a result,” added Critchlow.