An ARIAS special this week, as Laura and Lauren report from backstage at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London and we bring you highlights from the first half of the show. This episode is part one, including the following awards:

Best New Presenter
Best New Radio Show
Best Speech Breakfast Show
Best Speech Presenter
Best New Podcast
Tony Blackburn receives The Pioneer Award
Best Sports Show
Best Coverage of an Event
Best News Coverage
The 2022 Special Award, following the death of HM The Queen
Best Music Breakfast Show
The Creative Innovation Award
Best Factual - Single Programme
Best Factual - Series

Part two will be out next week.

Shamima Begum, the British teenager who left London to join the Islamic State made headlines around the world. The question of Shamima's citizenship and what to do with her divides British society. While her case was widely reported, important parts of her story remained unknown, until now. 

In this episode, Laura speaks to the creator of The Shamima Begum Story, a ten-part podcast series on BBC Sounds and feature length film. 

How do you tell a story like this and decipher fact from fiction, especially when it involves going to hostile environments where the personal risks are huge. 

Inspired by Josh Tate becoming the UK’s youngest newsreader at 16, we wanted to find out what skills, experience and knowledge are required for the job. 

This week, Laura catches up with Josh to see what’s happened since his first on-air bulletin. She then sits down with three people in charge of radio news to discuss being a newsreader. 

Laura’s joined by Lorraine Herbison (Head of News and Sport for Bauer Media in Scotland), Paul Nero (MD and controlling stakeholder of Devon’s Radio Exe) and Toby Sealey (Head of News at News UK Broadcasting). 

A must-listen for anyone wanting to work or progress as a newsreader.

What a start to the year for Owain Wyn Evans - he's the new host of BBC Radio 2's Early Breakfast, which is also the first daily weekday show created outside of London. 

Laura caught up with him in Cardiff for a quick chat about how the show is going, working with Bengo Media, and what he enjoys most.

What an offer. That’s what the Dave Berry Breakfast show promised listeners - Absolute Radio You. 

It’s the second year the team at the station has run this competition and a chap called Kevin who works at a theme park suggested an idea that beat hundreds of other entries and so, Absolute Radio Kevin was born. 

In this week’s episode Laura is joined by Dave Murphy (Breakfast Show Producer) who helped put the station together and coached Kevin. They discuss what went on behind the scenes to create Absolute Radio Kevin, how they successfully recorded all the links with the star of the station in just one day and why you should always have faith in your listeners. 

When the nation was clapping for the NHS, Kate Fairweather thought we should celebrate the frontline workers of the canine world too. And so, Dogs With Jobs was born.

Within two years, the monthly show won ‘Podcast of the Year’ at the Community Radio Awards 2022. It was recognised for its inspiring content and the passion of its host. 

This week, Kate talks to Laura about Dogs With Jobs, which is available as a podcast and on Petersfield’s Shine Radio. 

Hear how Kate and her colleague John Welsman overcame the challenges of recording on location, how they got the best out of their interviewees, and how the podcast became more than a passion project.

For anyone wanting to know how to get a foot in the door of the radio industry - this is for you.

Rosie Wright is Times Radio’s recently appointed Early Breakfast presenter. With only six weeks under her belt she joined The Radio Academy’s podcast host Laura Rawlings in conversation at our ‘Last Mondays’ event. 

These are our highlights of the chat - and they focus on Rosie’s career journey from student radio to a show on a national station. It includes a brilliant insight into what it takes to build a broadcasting career and how to make the most of whatever opportunity or platform you have.

If you love this and want to listen to the whole conversation, it’s available on the Radio Academy website, exclusive to RA members.

It made headlines around the world. The sleepy city of Salisbury - the location of the Novichok Poisonings. 

To mark the fifth anniversary of this huge event, a new series on BBC Wiltshire and BBC Sounds looks back at what happened, with those who were there. 

How do you tell the story of a landmark moment in history? How do you create a series that works on radio and as a podcast?

Laura speaks to Marie Lennon, a journalist at BBC Wiltshire who covered the story at the time and is the local producer for My Moment In History: The Salisbury Poisonings. 

To celebrate International Women’s Day, Laura shares one of her favourite pieces of Radio Academy content from the last year - Emma Barnett, live at The Radio Academy Festival in September 2022.

Emma is best known as the chief presenter of Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4. She has won multiple awards - including Best Speech Presenter at The ARIAS in 2022.  That Gold led to an appearance on The Festival's ARIAS Winners Stage, where she was interviewed by Magic's Harriet Scott.

Emma gives us an insight into presenting the longest-running women's show in the world.

From massive pan-network national campaigns, to your nearest station raising for the local good cause, with silly stunts, marathon broadcasts, and heartfelt packages - radio has long known how to pull on the heart strings of listeners to raise substantial sums for charity. 

But when times are tight, how do you encourage people to part with their cash? How do you craft a campaign that keeps listeners engaged? How much planning goes into these events? And what extra value do annual appeals bring to stations? 

This week Laura is joined by a roundtable of radio guests to establish the key to running a successful fundraiser on the radio.

From BBC Radio Lancashire, Graham Liver who has fronted many BBC Children In Need campaigns in his area.  From Bauer's Cash4Kids, Sales and Marketing Director Emma Brown. And from CAM FM - the student and community station for the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University - Station Manager Olivia Copeland.