CMJ 2009 College Day Part Four: College Radio Awards

Not necessarily the most educational part of College Day at the CMJ Music Marathon this year, but certainly the most fun was the College Radio Awards Ceremony on Thursday, October 22, 2009.

A few months back CMJ subscribers were invited to suggest nominees for the awards and in September those finalists were announced. During the CMJ Music Marathon attendees were able to vote for their favorites in a variety of categories related to college radio and college radio promotion.

Here's a selection of this year's nominees and you can check here for last year's winners.

Lisa Hresko and Moose Double Check the Vote Count

The MC for this event was CMJ's Editor-in-Chief Rev. Moose. He set an irreverent tone for the festivities by throwing free Bjorn Bjorg underwear out into the crowd throughout the ceremony. Instead of having set presenters, he chose folks based on the names on business cards that he pulled from his pocket. Those accepting awards also joked around by running up the aisle shooting confetti guns, spouting off non-sequiter acceptance speeches, and by pretending to answer fake cell phone calls from family members.

This year, Sacramento State station KSSU dominated with 5 awards (ousting last year's big winner KEXP). Canadian stations also did extremely well, with CJLO earning three awards and CHUO and CFUV each scoring one a piece.

I was impressed to see a variety of stations nominated for awards this year, but a bit disappointed to again see one station win a sweep of major awards. It's tough, because many of the people voting probably aren't familiar with all of the stations in the running...so they may just vote based on who they've met at CMJ and who they've seen on panels.

No Wonder CJLO Won "Best Group Effort"

On to the station-related winners (to see all winners, see the story on CMJ):

Station Of The Year:

KSSU (Sacramento)

Apparently this is the first year that this was not won by KEXP.

Biggest Community Resource:

KSSU (Sacramento)

Best Use Of Limited Resources:

KSSU (Sacramento)

Best Online-Only Station:

WOXY.com (Austin)

Best Website:

KEXP (Seattle)

Most Doing Something No One Else Is Doing:

WNYU (New York)

Best Student-Run Station:

KSSU (Sacramento)

Most Supportive Of The Local Scene:

CFUV (Victoria)

Music Director of Year

KSSU's Susie Kuo

Specialty Music Director Of The Year

CJLO's Brian Joseph

Best Group Effort

CJLO (Montreal)

Coolest

CJLO's Omar Husain

Best Taste In Music

CHUO's Joni Sadler (Ottawa)


Previous Posts about the 2009 CMJ Music Marathon:

CMJ 2009 Band Name Trends Revealed
Radio is Alive and Well at the CMJ Music Marathon (for Radio Survivor)
Radio's Presence at CMJ
CMJ 2009 Music Marathon Recap Part Two (10/20/09)
Social Networking, Metal Radio & Digital Music, and Miles Davis in 1959 (10/21/09)
CMJ 2009 College Day Part One- College Radio and Competition
CMJ 2009 College Day Part Two: Music Directors' Summit
CMJ 2009 College Day Part Three: Making Executive Decisions Panel