This award recognises an individual whose leadership, editorial vision, and strategic thinking has elevated the audio work around them over the past year. This is not a craft award, it is a leadership award. It celebrates the people who shape what gets made, who makes it, and how it reaches the world.

This award celebrates a producer or team who has used video in a podcast context in a genuinely innovative and impactful way, where the creative use of the visual dimension takes the content beyond what audio alone could achieve.

This category recognises audio works in which sound itself takes a leading role - pieces where the sonic experience is the primary vehicle, not a supporting element to voice or narrative.

This award recognises a producer, production team, or company whose work has broken through to audiences, platforms, or markets beyond their home country: demonstrating that their audio talent and storytelling has a reach and relevance that crosses borders.