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October 23, Chicago: Battery Radio is proud to find its fingerprints on two out of a total nine awards announced by the Third Coast International Audio Festival.

THE WIRE (episode 5) received the Directors Choice award. The Wire is an 8-part music documentary series coproduced by Battery Radio’s Chris Brookes with Paolo Pietropaolo and Jowi Taylor for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The series explores the effect of electricity on music.

The Wire can currently be heard in Canada every Sunday at 4.30 Nfld time until Christmas on CBC Radio Two. Episode 2 of the series, to be heard this Sunday (Oct 30) won the prestigious Prix Italia last month in Milan. The 3rd Coast award-winning episode (#5) will be broadcast November 20th. Check the series website for complete interviews, timelines and background information.

A MAP OF THE SEA, produced by Battery Radio for Homelands Productions USA claimed the second 3rd Coast award. Written by Chris Brookes and edited by Homelands' Jon Miller, the documentary examines cultural change in Newfoundland resulting from the cod fishery collapse. It was broadcast throughout the United States in January by the program Living on Earth. and is part of the Homelands Worlds of Difference series exploring the effect of global change on societies.

The Third Coast International Audio Festival Competition honors creative and compelling documentary work being produced worldwide.

September 24, 2005. Milan: THE WIRE, a music documentary series coproduced by Paolo Pietropaolo, Chris Brookes and Jowi Taylor has won the 2005 Prix Italia radio award. The announcement was made in Milan, Italy.

The Prix Italia has been called"the Booker Prize of radio", and is the world's oldest international radio, television and web competition. Founded by the Italian public radio broadcaster RAI in Capri in 1948, this year's festival is its 57th edition.

THE WIRE is an eight-part series exploring the effect of electricity on music. It was coproduced by Battery Radio's Brookes with CBC's Pietropaolo and Taylor for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation earlier this year. Production was trans-continental via internet file transfer between St. John’s, Vancouver and Toronto. The series was first broadcast on CBC Radio One in February and March 2005 with a CBC Radio Two rebroadcast during July and August 2005.

The series episode honoured by the Prix Italia is Part 2: The Change of the Sound. In explaining their decision, the Italia jury said:
"The Jury chose this program because it succeeded against all the odds in educating and entertaining the listener in a very lively, engaging and sophisticated way. The production employs specific audio techniques that reflect the very development in the history of sound recording and post production explored in the broadcast. It also applauded a musical plot that embraced everything from Karlheinz Stokhausen to the Beatles."

June 27, 2005. New York: TRAVELLING LIGHT, a documentary about the monarch butterfly produced for Radio Netherlands, has claimed a Silver World Medal at the International Radio Festival of New York. It has also been selected to receive the United Nations Award, which honours programming that best exemplifies the aims and ideals of the United Nations. The award was presented in New York by UN Public Information Director Raymond Sommereyns.

The 30-minute feature was produced for Radio Netherlands and broadcast last year by Radio Netherlands Vox Humana. It was written and recorded by Chris Brookes. It competed in the global competition which attracted over 500 entries from 32 countries.

TRAVELLING LIGHT examines the incredible 4000-mile journey of the Monarch butterfly from Canada to Mexico. The spectacular annual flight of this tiny insect has captured the imagination of poets, scientists and schoolchildren alike, but it is now threatened by environmental destruction in Mexico, United States, and Canada. In the program, scientists discuss the mystery of the butterfly's navigational abilities and stress the ecological and cultural value of the unique migration.

The New York announcement comes on the heels of last month’s success which saw the Newfoundland independent radio production house score three national and international awards. Last month in Hvar, Croatia, a Battery-produced radio feature was named winner of the international Prix Marulic prize. Also in May, the company’s documentaries won the CAJ Canadian Association of Journalists and the AJA Atlantic Journalism awards in Canada.

May 16, 2005. Winnipeg: The Battery Radio documentary feature THE MAN WHO SANG GOODBYE has been named top Radio News/Current Affairs program of the year by the Canadian Association of Journalists.

The CAJ, Canada's only national professional organization for reporters, editors, producers and photographers, announced the winners of the annual CAJ Awards for Investigative Journalism on Saturday at the association's annual national conference in Winnipeg. The CAJ Awards are Canada's only recognition for the best investigative journalism across the country.

THE MAN WHO SANG GOODBYE is a historical detective story which tracks the trail of a musician named Omar Blondahl. Once a star of radio and television with over a dozen record albums to his credit, Omar Blondahl was a household name in Newfoundland and maritime Canada 40 years ago. Folklorists and musicologists today give him credit for rescuing many traditional songs from oblivion and for creating the modern canon of Newfoundland folksong. At the peak of his career he suddenly disappeared. Most people (including his family) had no idea where he went. Beginning with genealogical records in Reykjavik and ending with an old man and a box of mementos in a Vancouver apartment, the documentary explores the performer's music as it tries to solve the riddle of his life.

May 15, 2005. Hvar, Croatia: THE PROMISED LAND OF THE SAINTS, a documentary feature produced for Radio Telefis Eireann, has won top prize at the prestigious Prix Marulic International Festival of Radio Plays and Documentary Radio Dramas in Hvar, Croatia. The Prix Maruliç is an annual festival dedicated to radio programs based on the world's literary heritage.

The winning program is a 43-minute radio feature that explores the ancient 6th-century Chronicle of St. Brendan in a Newfoundland soundscape, using contemporary sounds and voices. Part whimsy, part serious, it takes the Proustian view that memories are embodied in physical objects and sets out to find traces of St. Brendan’s paradise in present-day reality. The production features Newfoundland performer Berni Stapleton, writers Wayne Johnston and Tim Severin, and the work of Newfoundland model-maker Peter Picco as well as the voices of Newfoundlanders in St. John's, Ferryland, Paradise and St. Brendan's. It was recorded in Ireland and Newfoundland, and was part of a project assisted by the Ireland-Nfld partnership organisation.

May 5, 2005. Halifax: NOT FIT FOR IT, a 5-part documentary series broadcast by CBC Newfoundland & Labrador's regional afternoon show ON THE GO in March 2004, has won this year's Atlantic Journalism Award for Radio Feature.

The 100-minute historical series marked the 70th anniversary of an unprecedented event in world history. In February 1934 Newfoundland became the only country ever to voluntarily relinquish elective democracy. The national legislature closed for 16 years and never reopened (from then until becoming a Canadian province in 1949 the country was governed by British-appointed bureaucrats). The two-year period 1932-34 in St. John's pre-destined the next quarter-century of Newfoundland's political history. Looking back at those events today is like "reading the tea leaves" for sea-changes which later happened to a people's sovereignty and national character, to how others would come to view them and how they would come to see themselves.
The radio series featured the voices of: historians James Hiller, Peter Neary, Gene Long, and John Fitzgerald; witnesses to the era Helen Whiteway, Bert Sparkes, Bill Coady, Paul O'Neill; and performers: Brian Hennessey, Robert Chafe, Aidan Flynn, and Ivan Morgan. Tne series was written and recorded by Chris Brookes. It received a repeat broadcast on CBC ON THE GO during March 2005.

The 24th annual Atlantic Journalism Awards were announced in Fredericton April 30th and celebrate excellence in Atlantic Canadian media. Awards were presented in 23 categories. The Battery Radio series won the Gold Award for Radio Feature Writing.