Eight awards for Cork at PPI Radio Awards

Cork radio stations had plenty of reasons to celebrate as they picked up seven awards at the annual PPI Radio Awards held in the Lyrath Hotel in Kilkenny last Friday night.

Cork's Red FM picked up five awards including one gold, one silver and three bronze while 96FM won two awards including one silver and a bronze. Newstalk's Cork correspondent Jonathan Healy nabbed a Silver as 'News Broadcaster of the Year'.

Cork's only Gold award was won by Red FM for the Friday night show 'Transmission with Colm O'Sullivan' in the 'New Irish Music/ Musical Talent Programme' category and they also won silver in the 'Specialist Music' category for 'Dance on Red with Philip Bourke and Marq Walsh' while bronze awards were won by 'Red Drive with Dave Mac' for 'Music Programme General', 'The Red Rooster' for 'Breakfast Programme' and 'The Big Red Bench' for 'Sports Programme.'

96FM won a silver award in the ' interactive speech programme' category for 'The Neil Prendeville Show' while the Vita Cortex story as reported by Cork Independent columnist PJ Coogan won them a bronze award in the 'News Story' category. Cork based Newstalk broadcaster Jonathan Healy picked up a Silver award in the 'News Broadcaster of the year' category.

"It's fantastic for the station to feature so prominently in all the main programming categories while competing against  all the national and local radio stations in the country and particularly because theses awards are judged by our peers in the radio sector. The success shows the commitment of all the team in Cork's Red FM, who on a daily basis produce the best radio in Ireland for our listeners in Cork. We're all delighted with this win," said Fiona Darcy, CEO of Red FM.

The PPI Radio Award are sponsored by PPI and the BA and are in its 12th year and celebrate the art and skill of radio production and programming. PPI awards saluted the best writer, broadcasters, producers, reporters, presenters and technicians in radio north and south.