Sony Radio awards; Rajar results; Nicky Campbell

Monday night was Sonys night, and a ruddy long one it was too. Chris Evans, the host, tried to keep things moving, but with around 8,679 awards to give out even his lickety-split pace couldn't stop the entire Great Room at the Grosvenor hotel from rugby-tackling the wine waiter mid-evening and desperately ordering more booze. Radio seems to feel the need to up its profile by giving everyone who works there some kind of gong. I don't know why. The Rajar figures this week showed that around the same amount of people listen to radio as watch the TV (46.5 million: there's only 61 million of us in the whole of the UK!), though for not as long (20 hours of radio a week versus 30 hours of telly). Talking of Chris Evans: later in the week, he was given a much-trailed pat on the back, when the Rajars revealed that he has added over 1 million listeners to Radio 2's breakfast show. It's now by far the biggest programme in Europe, with over 9 million listeners every day. Very good: though you worry that success has, yet again, gone to Evans's head. On Monday night, he was close to his old insufferable self, making on-stage digs at male presenters such as Christian O'Connell and Johnny Vaughan and fawning over good-looking women. Chris, you're nicer when you're ever so 'umble. Anyway, here are the high- and lowlights of the Sonys. Adam and Joe won gold in the best comedy section; Jarvis was voted best newcomer by listeners. All together: yay! Two big told-you-sos from 6Music to the BBC. The good doctor Mark Kermode was the deserved winner of specialist contributor. Zane Lowe got two more golds to put on his already creaking mantelpiece (best specialist music programme and music broadcaster of the year). He's a fantastic broadcaster, but it does make you wonder: where's his competition? Today won breakfast show of the year (great programme, but still: yawn). Trevor Nelson got the gold award, which was lovely, though I think his Breakfast Show on 1Xtra with Gemma should have got a gold. Incredibly, the wonderful Lauren Laverne missed out entirely, Radcliffe and Maconie only got a bronze and poor old Nick Ferrari, nominated in five categories, only went home with three non-gilt gongs. A shame: his show is a remarkable mix of politics, polemic and the public, all held together by the astonishingly fluent Ferrari and his tiny production team. They deserved more. Then, on Thursday, the Rajars were released. Two big stories: Radio 2 now has over 17% of the entire radio-listening audience, reaching over 14.5 million every week. And 6Music, with all the don't-shut-it extra publicity, has gained an astonishing 50% more listeners in the last quarter. Its audience has grown to over 1 million listeners, comparable to Radio 7 and way over that of 1Xtra. Plus, each listener tuned in for, on average, 7.7 hours a week, which is almost as high as Radio 1 listeners' devotion and way over that of Radio 3. Lest we forget, 6Music is a digital station, with no FM/AM outlet at all. Asian Network fans had less to celebrate: their station's audience remained static, at around 350,000 listeners. In other news, someone won the election, and someone else become his New BFF (best friend for ever). Clegg and the Egg were all over Radio 4 and 5 Live all week. It caused tensions, in the end. When a listener said to Nicky Campbell (5 Live) that the media should stop carping and get behind the new coalition, Nicky snapped: "The media should get behind the government? What is this, North Korea?" Ha!