Winning producers are especially encouraged to attend the annual TCF Conference and Awards Ceremony; registration fees for both are waived. Winning entries will be featured in the annual Third Coast Festival Broadcast, which is heard across the United States each Fall.

Categories:
 Best Documentary
 Best News Feature
 Directors' Choice
 Best New Artist
 Radio Impact
 Audio Luminary

Best Documentary Awards

Gold prize – $6000 / Silver prize – $5000 / Bronze prize – $4000 /
Honorable Mention prizes (up to 2) – $1500

The Competition seeks stories that document a place, time, person, event, phenomenon or issue. These include but are not limited to: investigative reports, narrative stories, personal essays, audio portraits, and narrative field recordings.  We’re interested in work with a social mission and stories that entertain. Musical and historical documentaries are welcome. Profiles and cultural snapshots are welcome. Podcasts and documentaries that redefine the documentary form are welcome.

Entries must be 2-60 minutes in length. For more details about what work qualifies, read our eligibility guidelines and check out our FAQ.

Best News Feature

$2,000

The TCF/RHDF Competition is pleased to announce our newly established Best News Feature category, created to honor exceptional news features reported by radio newsrooms and independent reporters worldwide. Submissions should be stories (local, national, international) produced in response to events and issues (serious or light-hearted.) Enterprising work that brings new stories to light is also welcome.

Best News Feature entries should exhibit exemplary reporting and journalistic integrity. Like the Best Documentary entries, BNF’s should begin with a compelling story choice, and exhibit strong writing, creativity and use of sound where appropriate.

Theer is a place on the entry form for producers designate their work for this category. Best News Feature entries are not eligible for any of the other categories.

Entries must be 2-10 minutes in length. To read more about what work qualifies, read our eligibility guidelines and check out our FAQ.

$2000

This award is chosen by the Third Coast Festival staff and given to an entry that strongly demonstrates innovation and creativity in storytelling, sound design and/or overall production style.

Entries must be 2-60 minutes in length. For details about what work qualifies, read our eligibility guidelines and check out our FAQ.

$2000

This award is presented to a producer who has entered the audio field between July 2006 and July 2008. To qualify, each entrant must have recorded, written and mixed his/her entry. It is permissible to have worked with an editor, as long as she/he performed in an advisory capacity only. Co-productions are not eligible in this category.

Each entrant must include a statement explaining his/her eligibility as a Best New Artist candidate. (i.e. explaining that he/she did indeed record, write and mix his/her entry.) All entries in the Best New Artist category will automatically be considered for the Best Documentary category as well.

Entries must be 2-60 minutes in length. For details about who qualifies, check out our FAQ. Then, if you still have questions about your eligibility as a Best New Artist, contact us.

View a sample BNA Statement.

Radio Impact Award

$2000

This award recognizes a single documentary or feature (regardless of style or structure) that has significantly impacted an individual, group or community. This can be an investigative report that influenced public debate, or a close-up portrait of a community that challenged listeners’ stereotypes, or a radio story that changed the course of an individual’s life, or something else entirely.

Each Radio Impact entry must include a statement – one page maximum - describing the change that came about as a result of the documentary. The statement should cite tangible evidence of the piece's impact, whether it was legal, social or personal. The statement may also cite listener response (such as emails) and other evidence of how the documentary affected the subject it covered, or the community where it aired.

If the entry is part of a series, the rest of the series may be submitted as supporting material. All work entered into the Radio Impact category will automatically be considered for the Best Documentary category as well.

Entries must be 2-60 minutes in length. For details about what work qualifies, read our eligibility guidelines and check out our FAQ. If you still have questions about whether your entry may be a candidate for the Radio Impact Award, contact us.

View a sample RI Statement.

Audio Luminary Award

The Audio Luminary Award is presented to an individual who is greatly admired for his or her significant and ongoing contributions to the field of radio and/or documentary audio. Not only has this person left a profound mark on the audio field, he or she continues to be a source of inspiration to others.

Producers and radio fans alike are invited to submit a nomination for the Audio Luminary Award. This is a unique opportunity to recognize someone in radio whose talent is exceptional, or who has inspired your own career. A committee of producers will join the Third Coast Festival staff in selecting the 2008 ALA recipient. After completing the ALA nomination form below, we strongly recommend that you encourage others to send letters or emails supporting your nomination. These can be emailed to info@thirdcoastfestival.org. Nominations and letters of support are due by July 18, 2008.


Recent honorees of this award include Peter Leonhard Braun (2007) who as founder of the International Features Conference has influenced generations of radio producers around the globe; Piers Plowright (2006), the “godfather” of feature-making at the BBC; and Norman Corwin (2005), known as the poet-laureate of radio.