This year’s Sony Radio Awards pushed into the limelight this hyperlocal monthly podcast that gets under the skin of the London borough of Hackney.

Produced by a freelance team led by The Guardian’s senior audio producer, Francesca Panetta, it is recorded entirely on location to capture the authentic feel of the area and has adopted an esoteric range of subjects, including buses, birdsong, bicycle brake-tuning and city furnishings.

The Sony judges named it best internet programme for an episode devoted to water, with contributions from writer Iain Sinclair and architectural historian Simon Inglis.

Panetta said she wanted to explore the life of a community that is both one of Britain’s poorest places and culturally one of its richest.

The podcast spans politics, art, social history, literature and environmental issues, and is now up to its 18th edition.

The Hackney Podcast beat satirical podcast Answer Me This!, The Guardian’s Media Talk and comedian Richard Herring’s As It Occurs To Me to the Sony Award, and has also recently netted Panetta a radio production award from the Radio Academy.

Executive producer Francesca Panetta
URL www.hackneypodcast.co.uk

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