The JOPI AWARDS for 2015

And unlike some lesser awards shows, these are given for and therefore named after the year in which the work was done rather than the year we're a few weeks in to....

BROADCASTER OF THE YEAR: Joint award to Iain Lee and Katherine Boyle
My job means i have about six hours of radio time most Saturdays and in order to make the most of this opportunity, i tend to utilise this to listen to a variety of podcasts and radio programmes rather than material broadcast live to air. I spent most of the year starting Saturday with Iain Lee's 3CR Breakfast Show podcast, which was a bit loud for Saturday morning but superbly produced and crammed full of content (plenty of it especially recorded for the podcast). During the Summer came the announcement that Iain and his breakfast producer Katherine Boyle were also taking a Saturday lunchtime slot (traditionally the space where BBC local radio imports a few members of the local WI to talk about chutney). The lunchtime show (dubbed "the Rabbit Hole") was a free for all phone in show, always in the custody of Lee and Boyle and occasionally nudged in direction by them; the sort of thing that used to populate every late night radio slot across the country back in the 80s and 90s, but which has since disappeared altogether. The main difference was that this was going out at midday on a Saturday and therefore couldn't fall in to the trap of ending up lewd as some of the late night shows did, instead it just got weird. But good weird. Really good weird.

The show was punctuated by various eclectic songs from Lee's music collection which fitted the free-roaming tone perfectly. For a presenter who has confessed to "not getting" music radio, he does a bloody good job of it.

Sadly it wasn't to last. Lee's departure came from 3CR following him upsetting a homophobic christian after calling him out as a bigot during the breakfast show, which incurred the wrath of some fundamentalist christian media organisation and despite protestations from an army of fans, various LGBT and atheist groups, his time at 3CR was over.

So, this award is not specifically for the breakfast show, the Rabbit Hole show, nor being shat on from a great height, but because the sum of this year's work for Lee and Boyle was greater than many broadcasters achieve in their lifetime.

Twitter: @iainlee and @properkath

RADIO STATION OF THE YEAR: BBC Radio Sheffield.
As with last year, i've listened to far too much local radio broadcast for an area some 200 miles away from me. Toby Foster's breakfast show with Amy Nagy and Silent Dan Green has been in superb form and the extra production values being invested in the podcast are much appreciated. Clueless with Howie Pressman, Kat Cowan and Cuthbert Cluemaster has had some superb editions this year with some excellent laugh out loud moments. Bernie Clifton's weekend show Live-ish has had some brilliant episodes too, one from early in the year with the current line up of The Grumbleweeds was excellent radio. So many local radio stations could learn a great deal from Radio Sheffield, but the lesson isn't a cherry picking exercise. It is about developing an overall tone, a team of presenters who clearly get on with each other and are happy to inventively cross promote shows without it feeling forced by management.

Twitter: @bbcsheffield 
Breakfast folks: @tobyfoster @amygracenagy @danmgreen
Clueless folks: @howiepressman1 @katherinecowan @radiocluemaster

FACTUAL PROGRAMME OF THE YEAR: BBC Radio Cornwall Special - The Coliseum
The decline of the British Seaside holiday has been well documented, and while the businesses which fall along with visitor numbers can be found at many resorts, few are as iconic as Cornwall's Coliseum entertainments venue. The Coliseum, sited on the beach at Carlyon Bay near St Austell featured a theatre, nightclub, restaurants and amusement arcade, an echo of something for everyone on the traditional family holiday. The final operations at the centre eventually folded in 2003 and it was finally demolished in 2015, prompting this nostalgic and atmospheric trip through the history of the site.

SONG OF THE YEAR: The Blow Monkeys - This is Your Life
Having bought a new phone in the spring, this is apparently what i've played the most this year. I did treat myself to a CD of Whoops! There Goes The Neighbourhood! during the summer and the original version of This is Your Life is still a belting pop classic.

MOMENT OF THE YEAR: The Vernon Click
That precise time just after 10am on weekdays when Chris Moyles signs off on Radio X and Vernon Kay starts blaring on.

AND EVERYTHING ELSE BRILLIANT:
Lives in a Landscape (BBC R4); John Finnemore's Double Acts (BBC R4); Kermode & Mayo's Wittertainment (BBC R5L); Jon Holmes, particualrly for getting Ofcom complaints on his first weekend breakfast (Radio X); Steve Lamacq's Roundtable for being occasionally brilliant but equally infuriating (BBC 6M); Hunted (BBC WM).