RTS awards

Manchester Metropolitan University students took home the Animation prize with Luz and the University of Central Lancashire’s Jamie Walsh won the Short Form award with Tia.

BBC Breakfast presenter Sally Nugent presented the awards, which were held at the Lowry Theatre in Salford. The special guest was former Coronation Street actor and co-star of new BBC One sitcom, Scarborough, Catherine Tyldesley.

Earlier in the day, RTS North West held its annual Student Media Conference at the Lowry Theatre.

Obsession, made by  TriHard Films, took home the Drama Short Form prize, with the film’s star, Kim Tserkezie, winning the Best Drama Performance prize for her “agonisingly gripping performance” as a victim of domestic abuse.

“It’s hard to believe it’s just five years since we announced our first Northern Ireland Programme Awards, which were set up to recognise the amazing content being produced in Northern Ireland,” said RTS Northern Ireland Chair Kieran Doherty.

The University of Sunderland broadcast journalism student took the prize for a report on Greek unemployment. A year earlier, he won the same award for a piece on a demonstration in Newcastle against US President Donald Trump.

The first series proved a hit with viewers and was nominated for a Royal Television Society Programme Award earlier this year. 

The show, which is filmed in a gig environment, sees two teams made up of comedians, hip hop legends and celebrity hip hop lovers battle it out in front of a live audience.

Hosted by Rizzle Kicks' Jordan Stephens, the two teams will once again be led by TV presenter Maya Jama and rapper Lady Leshurr, with new guests joining the trio each week.

At her very first World in Action meeting as a young researcher, Dorothy Byrne experienced a feeling she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Until she realised that it was “the feeling I got if I accidentally wandered into the gents’ toilets – I shouldn’t be here!”

Being a rare woman in a man’s world in the early 1980s didn’t deter her, however, and Byrne has now worked in investigative broadcast journalism for nigh on four decades.

Just under 100 industry professionals gathered at Prime’s new events space, Archive, to discover whether their work had made it on to the awards shortlist. Larry and Paul, a comedy act who have built up a strong local following on BBC Radio Leeds, hosted the launch.

Nominations for the 18 awards categories reflected the healthy level of production in the Yorkshire region. The hotly contested factual awards earned multiple nominations for Daisybeck Studios, Air TV, True North and True Vision Yorkshire.