2025 New York Festivals Storytellers Gala Announces Radio Award Winners

​New York Festivals (NYF) Storytellers Gala announced the 2025 Radio Awards winners.

Exceptional storytelling and audio innovation were celebrated during the 2025 Storytellers Gala virtual event, highlighting the achievements of global creators in radio and podcasting.

Captivating audio entries from storytellers around the world engaged listeners and earned top honors from the 2025 Radio Awards Grand Jury. Winning entries from 26 countries span podcasts and audiobooks, entertainment and music specials, dramas, documentaries, and breaking news coverage all created by some of the world’s most respected audio content creators.

Broadcaster of the Year

CBC/Radio-Canada was honored as the New York Festivals Radio Awards Broadcaster of the Year, recognised for compelling, thought-provoking storytelling from both CBC and Radio-Canada. Standout audio earned multiple top honors for excellence including Gold trophies.

The Current, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s current affairs program, earned a Gold trophy in the On-Air Talent category for host Matt Galloway, Canada’s most trusted radio voice, whose interviews offer clarity and depth on today’s critical topics. IDEAS, the long-running documentary series, explores everything from culture and the arts to science, technology, and social issues. The Gold-winning episode, IDEAS - Child Sex Abuse Prevention: How Best to Protect Kids asks a provocative question: What if childhood sexual abuse could be prevented before it happens?

Additional wins included Silver for Front Burner and Reclaimed – Indigenous Kids, Lucien supersensible, La version qui n'intéresse personne, Les années lumière: 30 ans, and La mort libre: 10 ans d’aide médicale à mourir. Bronze winners include Atlantic Voice – Coming Full Circle, Oliver Jones et les lumières de la Petite-Bourgogne, and À l'école de Gilles Vigneault. CBC/Radio-Canada also earned an impressive 13 Finalist Awards, showcasing the network’s consistent excellence across formats and themes.

“CBC/Radio-Canada is immensely proud to be named Broadcaster of the Year, a recognition that underscores the power of public broadcasting to tell exceptional stories. As Canada’s national public broadcaster, our audio storytelling in English and French informs and enlightens audiences on today’s most critical issues. From the CBC/NPR co-production Tested to Radio-Canada's La mort libre: 10 ans d’aide médicale à mourir (Free to Die: 10 Years of Medical Assistance in Dying), all the individual award winners and finalists demonstrate the excellence that characterises our teams across Canada. Congratulations to everyone whose hard work led to this honour.” said Marie-Philippe Bouchard, president and CEO, CBC/Radio-Canada.

2025 Grand Awards

The Man Who Fell to Earth by Bafflegab Productions – Entertainment: Drama Special, was honoured with the Grand Trophy. This award-winning adaptation of the classic novel, which inspired the acclaimed film starring David Bowie, is written by the creator of The Queen’s Gambit and The Hustler. The drama tells the story of an alien from a dying world who arrives on Earth to prevent humanity from repeating its destructive mistakes.

Tested by Bucket of Eels - Podcast: Sports Podcast, earned a Grand Trophy for their revealing podcast that traces the surprising,100-year history of sex testing in elite sports. Hosted by Rose Eveleth, the podcast follows the journey of two elite athletes: Namibia’s Olympic silver medalist Christine Mboma and Kenya’s national record holder Maximila Imali. Both were assigned female at birth and identify as women, yet due to their naturally high testosterone levels, new 2023 track regulations now bar them from competing in the female category unless hormone levels are suppressed.

Buried: The Last Witness by Smoke Trail Productions Limited - Documentary: Environment & Ecology was honoured with the Grand Trophy for their investigative series that exposes the harm done to British communities by secret dumps of toxic chemicals. Hosts Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor unearth the evidence of a dead witness, which proves that the US company Monsanto contaminated the British landscape and food chain with banned and carcinogenic 'forever' chemicals.
Visit the 2025 Radio Awards Winners’ Showcase.

Lesley Visser, pioneering sports journalist and legendary broadcasting trailblazer, was honoured with the New York Festivals 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award. NYF recognises prominent industry leaders whose accomplishments and contributions have advanced their field and made a lasting impact on the industry. A true innovator in sports journalism, Visser has made history as the first woman to achieve numerous milestones in the industry, earning her place as the most highly acclaimed female sportscaster of all time.

Master Plan (The Lever) Investigative Journalism Podcast was honoured by New York Festivals with the 2025 National Press Club Award. The National Press Award honours the highest scoring news program across the Breaking News Story Coverage, Continuing News Story Coverage, Nonfiction Series and News Podcast categories.

Entertainment entries engaged listeners through drama, music special and children’s programming, with Gold-winning content including MacBeth (Swedish Radio), U.Me: The Complete Musical (Magnus Opus), and Pete Tong's Essential History of Dance Music (We are Grape Ltd). In the Children’s Entertainment category, Gold trophies were awarded to Hey History! (Impact Studio) and The Flying Suitcase (Swedish Radio).

Podcasts saw a powerful showing this year, with compelling entries across news, entertainment, and storytelling formats. Gold-winning standouts include The Menendez Brothers: The Official Companion Podcast and The Seneschal: A Rebel Moon Story (Netflix), Elon, Inc. and Beak Capitalism, Odd Lots (Bloomberg Podcasts), True Crime Reports (Al Jazeera Digital), Cement City (Cement City Productions), Asian Tsunami Anniversary Special (Part 1 and 2) (Mediacorp Pte Ltd), La Grande Famiglia (The Big Family) (Rai Radiotelevisione Italiana), NPR's Embedded: Supermajority (NPR), Search Among The Sunflowers (Media Heads), Landslide (Nuance Tales), F1 Explains (Formula 1), Gordafarid (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), and Landslide (Nine Network Australia).

Attention-grabbing documentaries captivated listeners with powerful storytelling and original perspectives, exploring topics from culture and history to current affairs, social issues, and human rights. Gold-winning work elevated the craft of audio storytelling including The Sounds of America (Accompany Studios), Shane MacGowan: The Old Main Drag (Rich Power), Jeff Buckley Forever by Guy Pearce (Zinc Media), Expanse: Spies in the Outback (Australian Broadcasting Corp. Sydney), Fingertip Chef: Cooking My Life (BeFM), and Alvin Hall's Other America (Michael Umney).

Immersive and transportive, 2025’s top audiobooks swept listeners into imagined worlds and engaging narratives. Gold-winning entries included Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (BBC Audio Scotland & Northern Ireland), The Sick Bag Song) (Major Label/ Zweitausendeins/ Radio Bremen), The Haunted House on Hollow Hill (HarperCollins Publishers) and Nikki Giovanni (CBC Radio and Audio).

Excellence in investigative journalism shined a spotlight on in-depth reporting, compelling storytelling, and global perspective. Standout work earned Gold including Master Plan (The Lever), Heaven's Helpline (NZME), Unreliable Witness (Sky News), Cocaine Inc. (The Times, Sunday Times & News Corp Australia), and Extradition (TVO Today/Innerspeak).

The New York Festivals Radio Awards legacy provides a showcase to celebrate world-class storytellers from around the globe. Since its inception in1957, the competition has celebrated innovation and excellence in broadcast audio content across all genres and platforms evolving with industry advancements and global trends.

All Entries in the 2025 competition were screened online by NYF’s Radio Awards international Grand Jury of 200+ producers, directors, writers, and other creative media professionals from around the globe and judged on the following set of criteria: production values, creativity, content presentation, direction, writing, achievement of purpose and audience suitability.

New York Festivals announced the NYF Radio Awards winning entries at the Storytellers Gala on May 22nd at 6PM EDT in a virtual event that included global highlights, winners’ acceptance speeches and spotlights with some of the most respected storytellers. View the 2025 Storytellers Gala. Visit the 2025 Radio Awards Winners’ Showcase.