The final round of judging for the ABU Prizes took place in Kuala Lumpur this week, with a high level jury of radio experts from around the Asia Pacific region evaluating the best entries of 2016.

The full list of finalists is here.

Judges this year included representatives from KBS Korea, RRI Indonesia, IRIB Iran and MBC Networks Sri Lanka. The judging panel chairperson was AsiaRadioToday’s Steve Ahern.

The judges considered the cultural context of each entry, the levels of resourcing and innovation in the submissions and listened to each submission. When entries were not in English the judges carefully studied the translation transcript while listening to the audio.

So what does it take to get to the final round of judging and potentially win one of the highly sought after ABU Prizes?

Steve Ahern put that question to the judges and asked them to share with our readers their top tips for submitting a strong entry in this international radio competition.

IRIB Iran: Saeed Madankan’s top 3 tips are:

1.     Deliver your message by good mixing and production

2.     Choose local topics and subjects and try to say it in a new way

3.     Translate it very well and put everything in the transcript

KBS Korea: Jongran Ha’s tips are:

1.     Catch the ear of the jury members by putting the interesting things in the first 5 minutes of the entry

2.     Highlight new topics and techniques

3.     The judging is in English so have a good translation with time code to make sure you say what you want to say

RRI Indonesia’s Harianto Adi’s top 3 tips are:

1.     Talk about news values of your entry, and include a wow factor

2.     Think in pictures like television, but deliver those pictures through sound

3.     Include new media to attract young listeners because radio is delivered in many devices now

MBC Sri Lanka’s Abarna Suthan’s advice is:

1.     Decide carefully on a good topic

2.     Present it as part of a compelling theme

3.     Make sure there is good production and presentation

From the ABU Secretariat, Vijay Sadhu also gave some important technical advice on how to make sure your entry fulfills the award criteria.

1.     Research well and select an appealing topic with an original idea from your country

2.     Select a program with a wow factor which amazes the judges

3.     There are no visuals for radio, so make sure you have a good explanation and transcript with lots of information about the program