Yahoo Finance Guardian's Today in Focus triumphs at British Podcast Awards
Today in Focus, the Guardian’s daily current affairs podcast, triumphed at the British Podcast Awards on Saturday, beating weighty competition from the Tortoise, the Economist and popular radio presenter James O’Brien, among others, in the Best Current Affairs category.
One of the show’s regular hosts, Anushka Asthana, said the award had been given for work she already regarded as “an absolute career highlight because it has given me the chance to work with the best producers that I’ve ever come across – who have put their heart and soul into launching and growing this podcast – ever since editor Katharine Viner came up with the idea.”
After the virtual ceremony, attended by George the Poet, last year’s winner of the Podcast of the Year award, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief Katharine Viner said: “This is a fantastic tribute to our brilliant Today In Focus team for making it such an intelligent and essential daily listen, and to the many Guardian journalists who have contributed their expertise and voices to Today In Focus.”
Asthana added: “Wow, we’re so chuffed with this award. Winning on current affairs is particularly exciting because – led by the brilliant Nicole Jackson and Phil Maynard, our producers – my co-presenter Rachel and Axel on sound design, have worked with Guardian journalists to showcase their work in an incredibly creative way while also generating our own original material. It’s great to see the team get that recognition.”
Other well-known big winners included the veteran footballer Ian Wright, whose podcast Football Inside Out: Fifa Women’s World Cup 2019 won in the sports category, and children’s author and performer David Walliams, who won in the family category with Marvellous Musical, a podcast aimed at introducing children to classical music.
The event also acknowledged the size of the public’s appetite for listening to people discussing sexual behaviour, gender and relationships. Overall winners of podcast of the year title were Poppy Jay, Rubina Pabani and Roya Eslami for their podcast Deep, Down and Desai: Brown Girls Do It Too, which discusses personal and sexual topics. They also won in the best sex and relationships podcast category.
Chris and Rosie Ramsey’s equally candid podcast, Shagged. Married. Annoyed, won the listeners’ choice award, which came out on top in a record total ballot of 229,000 public votes, and the Guilty Feminist’s host Deborah Frances-White received the Spotlight Award, in recognition of the wide audience she draws with a series of podcasts that has featured comedians such as Sara Pascoe and Felicity Ward.
