Judgment day for the industry's finest.

Judging begins as shortlist drawn up for special industry executive award

Judging for the Music Week Awards begins this week when our expert panellists such as Channel Four head of music Neil McCallum and former Virgin Records UK president Paul Conroy start running the rule over entries from across the industry.

Around a dozen awards will be judged over the coming fortnight, including categories covering artist and catalogue marketing, retail, digital, best venue and national and regional radio stations.

Acclaimed industry figures have been brought in to judge appropriate categories, with the line-up of judges this year including SJM Concerts director Chris York who has worked with acts including Coldplay, Green Day, Morrissey and Oasis.

Fellow judges include Paul Conroy, who, since exiting his position heading Virgin Records UK, has been running Adventures In Music and Adventure Records, and Neil McCallum, who in his role overseeing music and T4 at Channel Four is responsible for the broadcaster's extensive music output such as E4 Music and managing the 4Music Channel and T4's editorial. A fellow judge is Jeremy Marsh who, following senior positions at companies including Virgin, Warner, BMG and Telstar, is now chairman of U-MYX.

Xfm co-founder Sammy Jacob has also agreed to be a judge this year. Some two decades after the first Restricted Service Licence that eventually led to Xfm winning a full-time FM licence he is now managing director of music and media company DX Media, which he co-founded and which owns and operates NME Radio under licence from IPC.

Other faces among the judges will be two key figures from music retail: Richard "Chalky" White who launched his first independent store Chalky's in 1987; and Gennaro Castaldo, who has been with HMV since 1985 and is head of press and PR for the HMV and Fopp stores.