News items

• Festivals & Awards Autumn 2009
• New Commissions for BBC Radio 4
• New York Festivals
• We've Moved!
• Prix Marulic 2009
• New Commissions for the BBC World Sevice
• Sony Awards Success
• International Features Conference, Dublin
• Something Understood
• New commissions for the BBC World Service
• New comissions for BBC Radio 3
• New commissions for Newstalk, Dublin

Sony Awards Success

We are very pleased to announce that Leonard and Marianne (BBC R4) won bronze at this year's Sony Radio Academy Awards in the feature category. Produced by Alan Hall, the programme combines extracts from an interview with Leonard Cohen by Kari Hesthamar, made available courtesy of Norwegian Radio, with a new interview with Marianne Ihlen to reveal the love story immortalised in Cohen's song So Long Marianne. The judges said:

"Beautifully constructed and hauntingly told, the programme showed that some memories still hurt, after all these years."

Congratulations also go to Peregrine Andrews and Arlen Harris whose programme Driving Into Debt (BBC R4) was nominated in the news special award. The judges said:

"This was an original angle on the financial crisis as it followed a surprisingly engaging debt collector going about his business of repossessing cars. The fluent production cleverly combined individual stories and vivid actuality within the broader context of the credit crunch."