The Radio Academy is a registered charity that is dedicated to 'the encouragement, recognition and promotion of excellence in UK broadcasting and audio production'.

The Radio Academy was formed in 1983 and is run via a board of trustees. John Myers will take up his role of Chief Executive in April 2011.Bob Shennan, Controller of BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music, is the Chair.

The Telegraph recently labelled The Academy "the industry's most powerful body".

The Radio Academy runs a range of conferences throughout the year. The biggest is the annual Radio Festival. Others events concern music radio and speech radio, whilst the Radio Academy Branches regularly hold their own local events across the country. The Academy also runs regular "Masterclasses" for young people who would like to work in radio.

The UK's most prestigious radio industry awards, the Sony Radio Academy Awards are supported by the Radio Academy. Often referred to as 'the Sony Awards' (after their principal sponsor), the awards celebrate everything from the biggest and best national radio shows to small shows by local stations.

Richard Park (Korean: 박용수, Bak Yong-Su; born May 27, 1976 in Seoul, South Korea) is a Korean-born American professional ice hockey forward currently playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League (NHL).

Park moved to Southern California near Los Angeles with his family at the age of three. After ten years in the United States, at the age of 13, he moved to Ontario, Canada, where he played minor hockey in the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL). He eventually worked his way up to the Belleville Bulls of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) and played for Belleville from 1992–93 to 1995–96.

He was drafted into the NHL following his second OHL season by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round, 50th overall, of the 1994 NHL Entry Draft. He made his NHL debut when he played one regular season game and three playoff games for the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1994–95. Park became only the second Korean-born person to play in the NHL after Jim Paek. Coincidentally, both of them were drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins. Park played most of the next season, 1995–96, in the NHL totaling 56 games. Those 56 games would be the most he would play in the NHL until the 2001–02 when he joined the Minnesota Wild as he spent the next few years bouncing around the minors and different NHL teams. During that time, he played for the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL and various IHL and AHL teams.

Andrew Parfitt (born October 1958, Bristol) is the Executive Director of Talent for ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi . He was the Controller of BBC Radio 1 in the United Kingdom, and held that role from 1998-2011, taking over from Matthew Bannister. He was also the controller of BBC Radio 1Xtra, BBC Asian Network, BBC Popular Music and BBC Switch.

He went to Ashton Park Comprehensive School in Bower Ashton, Bristol. He then went to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (now an associate college of UWE). From 1978-9, he was the assistant stage manager at the Bristol Arts Centre.

Parfitt joined the BBC in 1980 working as a Studio Manager. He spent some time with BFBS in the Falkland Islands, before returning to the UK in 1984. He became a producer in BBC Education in 1985, then joined Radio 4 in 1987 and produced Pick of the Week and Bookshelf. He helped set up Radio 5, and became the network's Assistant Editor in 1989. He joined Radio 1 as Chief Assistant to the Controller in 1993. A year later he was promoted first to Editor, Commissioning and Planning and soon after to Managing Editor. In 1997, he became the network's Deputy Controller when Matthew Bannister was appointed Director of BBC Radio.

Dolores Mary Eileen O'Riordan (/oʊˈrɪərdən/) (born 6 September 1971) is an Irish singer, guitarist and songwriter. She led the rock band The Cranberries to worldwide success and fame for 13 years before the band took a hiatus in 2003, but have since reunited in 2012. Her first solo album Are You Listening? was released in May 2007 and was followed up by No Baggage in 2009. O'Riordan is notable for her unmistakable lilting voice and strong Irish accent.

Dolores O'Riordan was born and brought up in the Ballybricken area of Limerick City, Ireland. She was born to parents Terence and Eileen O'Riordan and was the youngest of seven children. She was raised as a Roman Catholic. She attended Laurel Hill Coláiste FCJ in South Circular Road, Limerick.

In 1990 O'Riordan auditioned and won the role of lead singer for a band called The Cranberry Saw Us (later changed to The Cranberries).

The band released five albums: Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? (1993), No Need to Argue (1994), To the Faithful Departed (1996), Bury the Hatchet (1999) and Wake Up and Smell the Coffee (2001) and a greatest-hits compilation entitled Stars - The Best of 1992 - 2002 (2002), before they went on hiatus in 2003.

Christian O'Connell (born 7 April 1973)^{[citation needed]} is a British radio DJ, who presents the Absolute Radio weekday breakfast show. He formerly hosted BBC Radio Five Live's weekend sports game show Fighting Talk alongside the weekday breakfast show on indie music station Xfm London. O'Connell joined the Virgin Radio team making his first broadcast on 23 January 2006. He makes use of irreverent features and sometimes mocks the music that he plays. He is well known for his frequent discussions of embarrassing real life situations, often discussing the gender differences between men and women, and what the role of the man should be in a given situation. In September 2008 he published a book The Men Commandments to this effect.^{[citation needed]}

O'Connell started out on 2CR Radio in Bournemouth in 1999. He later moved to Juice FM in Liverpool in 2000. He commented "It was a budget, tin-pot station. They didn't have a lot of money."

He has long been a fan of Hollywood action man Steven Seagal, who he had mentioned several times on radio, and remarked that he would love to meet. However, when Seagal rang O'Connell the relationship and understanding between the two was quite difficult and left O'Connell feeling disappointed. Seagal did not understand O'Connell's ironic personality and sense of humour and much of the recorded interview had to be removed from the radio broadcast.The Observer described the interview as, "a spectacularly terrible interview in which O'Connell's questions dropped into a seemingly bottomless well of apathy." O'Connell described the interview remarking; "It was the single worst thing I've ever done on radio. And the other week I was having a go at Michael Parkinson, saying he used to be fantastic but sadly now he's become too fawning, and then I did the Seagal thing and I thought: I should just leave."