Vote for The Broadcasters' Broadcaster.

VIEWPOINT TIM BLACKMORE

The Sony Radio Academy Awards is marking its 25th year with a one-off award, The Broadcasters' Broadcaster, for which it is asking UK broadcasters to choose their three favourites from a shortlist of 25 outstanding radio names from the past quarter-century. Names ranging from the likes of past favourites such as Alan Freeman and John Peel to contemporary names, including Chris Moyles and Christian O'Connell, are among the candidates for the award, which will be presented at this year's awards ceremony on April 30 at London's Grosvenor House Hotel. Awards committee chairman Tim Blackmore explains the thinking behind the accolade.

We just wanted to do something that was different to mark the fact it was a special anniversary and we just thought it would be interesting, rather than appointing panels of judges, to give somebody who is a legitimate broadcaster a chance to vote for somebody who has been a key influence personally or generally. We wanted something that was clearly focused and people understood: a broadcaster's broadcaster.

The challenge was coming up with a reasonable list which people could choose their three favourites from and we started by looking at people who won Sony Gold awards and then just looking at who had been mentioned by broadcasters as influences.

There were almost 300 names when we started and we eventually got it down to 149 and it then took two-and-a-half meetings of the awards committee to get it down to 25. We had to differentiate between what are simply good broadcasters we have personally ...