‘BBC News NI picks up three RTS NI awards’.

That was the headline on a recent Ormeau Avenue story celebrating the outstanding success of BBC Ulster in the Royal Television Society Awards. Sorry, the Royal Television Society Northern Ireland Awards.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful or to downplay the fine achievements of the Ormeau Avenue staff who grabbed gongs at the November ceremony, but BBCNI participating in  NI television awards seems a tad unfair. The Corporation’s 2024 income was £5.39 billion and its main competition is UTV, a channel with a flatpack studio whose premier talent divides broadcast time with doing voiceovers for taxi depot ads and deejaying first communions. 

In other words – it doesn’t seem fair. It’s like Bayern Munich entering the Steel and Sons Cup. Luke Littler in the South Antrim Darts League. Martin Scorsese doing Gavin Robinson’s podcast.

Amazingly, however, BBCNI didn’t blow the competition away in 2024, despite their fearsome firepower. They picked up three awards – News Coverage, Current Affairs and Single Documentary – and belated congratulations go from me to everyone involved and I hope they thoroughly enjoyed their night and will reap future benefits from this very prestigious acknowledgment of their talent.

Sadly, though, I can’t leave it at that because the rules of the winter/spring awards season have been altered – and it was BBCNI who altered them. Before this week, a quaint and charming custom was unanimously observed by the local media whereby winners would only be congratulated for their wins in press and broadcast reports. The triumph of Kneecap’s movie at the Baftas changed all that. Why things changed for BBCNI when it came to the republican, tricolour balaclava-wearing, Palestine-supporting, Irish-speaking trio from West Belfast, I can’t say.

Things have changed so that uplifting words of congratulation in a celebratory report (see headline at the beginning of article) are no longer enough. What is now required is that winners must also have their losses highlighted. Forget that namby-pampy, woke nonsense about a nomination being a win in itself. BBCNI has manned-up and decided that all things considered it’s good for the winners’ wind and limb if their failures are talked up. Think of it as tough love. And so, while the cheers were still echoing around the Royal Festival Hall in London and An Chultúrlann on the Falls, an Ormeau Avenue button was pushed and the BBCNI headline flashed out to the world: ‘Kneecap wins first Bafta but misses out in five categories’.

It was a tough one for the Gaeilgeoir rappers to take. I mean, who on their night of nights wants their local TV station to point up the negative right next to the positive? But speaking for myself, I have no doubt that BBCNI will in future frankly and fearlessly implement their new rules so that every winner of a gong – regardless of status or station – will be subject to the same rigorous, cruel-to-be-kind treatment. And if you doubt that, then I’m afraid – like Remoaners – you simply don’t believe enough.

The BBCNI participants in those November 2024 awards must be breathing a sigh of relief. Another two short months and their newsroom colleagues would have had to write a story and headline that points out that while three awards were indeed scooped, there were 16 categories. And that would have meant changing the opening headline of the report to ‘BBC News NI picks up three RTS NI awards but misses out in 13 categories’.

No, wait. I’ve just pressed an index finger to my ear to hear the news coming through my feed that while there were indeed 16 categories, BBCNI in multiple categories had multiple nominees. And if I hold my pen elegantly and look at the laptop before me, I am further apprised that in fact BBCNI had 35 nominees across those 16 categories. And a beep on my phone alerts me to a text telling me that the only people in the building who weren’t nominated for an award were a work experience kid and chronically shy security guy. And so in the best BBC tradition of sternly unbending Reithian accuracy, I need to amend that putative headline to: ‘BBC News NI picks up three RTS NI awards but misses out in 32’.

Roll on the Oscars.

No Kneecap.

Thank god.