Winners of 49th BPG Awards revealed
March 24, 2023
Two hit programmes picked up a pair of prizes at this year’s Broadcasting Press Guild Awards: Channel 4’s Derry Girls as Best Comedy plus Best Writer for Lisa McGee and the stars of BBC One’s This Is Going to Hurt – Ben Whishaw and Ambika Mod – for Best Actor and Best Actress.
Derry Girls previously won Best Comedy in 2019, while this is the first Best Writer trophy for Lisa McGee. Ben Whishaw has finally taken the BPG Best Actor award at the fourth time of asking after being nominated previously in 2016 for London Spy, 2013 (The Hollow Crown: Richard II and The Hour) and 2009 (Criminal Justice). Ambika Mod’s outstanding performance in the series saw her win with her very first BPG nomination for Best Actress.
The most popular new reality show on British TV, The Traitors, took the Best Entertainment title by a wide margin of votes, while BBC One shows also grabbed three other trophies: Sherwood for Best Drama (4+ episodes); The Real Mo Farah for Best Documentary Mini Series; and Frozen Planet II for Best Documentary (4+ episodes). The original Frozen Planet series won the same prize back in 2012.
Sky picked up its second drama category award in the last three years with I Hate Suzie Too winning Best Drama Mini Series. Chernobyl also won a drama prize in 2020 with HBO for Sky Atlantic.
Grant Tucker, the chair of the BPG, said: “Our winners always reflect the vast amount of talent in British television and the prizes are going to both programmes and individuals who were extremely popular with our audiences last year.”
The BPG Television, Streaming & Audio Awards – for work commissioned or produced in the UK and screened in 2022 – are prized by programme-makers because they are chosen independently by TV and audio correspondents, critics and previewers.
The 49th annual BPG Awards lunch took place today at Royal Horseguards Hotel in Whitehall, London. Warner Bros. Discovery and Pact are the event supporters.
This year, three awards were chosen directly by the BPG Executive Committee. For the first time, the BPG Jury Prize was awarded to multiple winners: eight BBC local radio journalists whose interviews held Liz Truss’s feet to the fire during her short stint as Prime Minister. The Breakthrough Award went to the very talented screen writer Jack Rooke whose Big Boys creation on Channel 4 was such a success in 2022 and which also received a BPG nomination in the Best Comedy category. The Harvey Lee Award, for an outstanding contribution to broadcasting, was presented to Jeremy Paxman to honour his remarkable 50 years on TV and radio as a broadcaster, journalist and author.
In the Audio Awards this year, the Radio Programme of the Year award went to In Dark Corners (BBC Radio 4) which saw Alex Renton investigate abuse at some of the nation’s most exclusive public schools; Best Podcast was The Coming Storm (BBC Long Form Audio) in which Gabriel Gatehouse took a journey into the dark heart of the American right and of modern conspiracy theories in the US; and Marianna Spring won Audio Presenter of the Year after receiving rave notices for her journalism on podcasts War on Truth and Disaster Trolls (both BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds).
Simon O’Hagan, chair of the audio jury, said: “Three great winners this year that have tackled some very serious subjects and that shows that radio and podcasts are especially important when it comes to investigative journalism.”