Down the Line and Russell Brand win Sony Awards

Radio 4 satire Down the Line and stand-up Russell Brand both won at last night's Sony Radio Academy Awards, Britain's premier radio awards ceremony.

Down the Line, a mock phone-in show created by Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse won the award for best radio comedy. The controversial series is designed to be as realistic as possible - when it was first broadcast people complained about the show because they did not realise it was a spoof. The series defeated sitcom Fags, Mags and Bags, comedy documentary Mark Thomas: My Life in Serious Organised Crime, Radio 4 sketch series That Mitchell and Webb Sound and BBC 7 sketch show A Series of Psychotic Episodes to win the prize.

Meanwhile Russell Brand won the Best Entertainment Award for his Radio 2 show, which is currently one of the most listened to shows on the station and is also riding high in the iTunes podcast chart. Radio 2 has experienced high listening figures recently, and this was shown in the awards with prizes also going to Dermot O'Leary and Jonathan Ross for their shows (Best Music Programme and Best Music Radio Rersonality respectively).

A full list of winners can be obtained from www.radioawards.org