Hi Alex. This year there are 69 nominees from the BBC out of 153 nominations in total. The awards are open to everybody in the UK radio and audio sector - anybody can enter from broadcast, podcast, or online radio.

@@theradioacademy Well you kind of just proved my point. 45% of your revenue for the awards comes from the BBC. You have the pay £45 to submit audio clips to be considered for an award. Therefore you ensure that the BBC get value for money, by shortlisting their audio clips over others who don't pay you as much. To illustrate my point more than 70% of shortlisted clips are from the BBC. This ignores the more talented independent shows out there, which kills off competition, to assist your biggest customer, the BBC. In 2020's awards, the BBC won 17 out of 23 categories. Why not just relabel the awards as a BBC only affair and stop pretending it's anything else. I have listened to the shortlisted comedy awards and you have managed to select some seriously boring rubbish. Why not post the audio clips that were submitted by all entrants and let people vote for their favourite. You seem to be judge and jury in a closed process, in which your biggest customer always wins.

@@alexmarshall5567 Hi Alex. The ARIAS are independently judged by more than 200 senior industry professionals from all areas of UK radio and audio production. They are judged on impact, creativity, and production - the amount any organisation pays is not a factor.

@@theradioacademy Yes, so out of the 200 "senior industry professionals", how many of them either currently work for the BBC or have worked for the BBC at some point? Alan Partridge was nominated for a comedy award this year, he is a spoof of a radio presenter, not a radio presenter and he might have been funny 25 years ago but this isn't exactly "impactful or creative" and as for the rest of the comedy shortlist all of the shortlisted entries were proper tosh. If you want to improve the awards, why not post all of the entered clips and let the public decide which ones they prefer? Otherwise you have no credibility, which is probably why Global radio ignore these "awards".

I thought it was pretty good!

Nothing wrong with that Boris impression, as the guy really got across Boris's 'hesitancy' and 'incoherence', and (in my opinion) exaggerated them perfectly. Also, Alistair McGowan does a great 'more composed' Boris, where he obviously speaks much slower, and over pronounces his 'ewwwwws' However, maybe Rory Bremner does the best Boris, overall?

@@KAF128 me too, not sure what he's on about

..or maybe Debra Stephenson - LOL?!

And DIANE ABBOTT

Cringe and boomerpilled.

"Andwrooh... I wreally must warn you to have cahhre. As well as my nine shadow cabinet posts, I'm now Shadow Minister for Incwredulous television intwroductions"