The Wisconsin Broadcasters Association recently handed out their annual awards for broadcasting excellence and Sun Prairie’s own 103.5 FM The Sun Community Radio scored with five awards, including three first place finishes.
Entering in the “Large Market-Music Format” category, 103.5 FM’s first place awards included “Best Newscast” for “Sun Prairie News,” “Best Sports Coverage” for its 2022 coverage of the “Sun Prairie versus Middleton Strikeout Cancer Baseball Game,” and “Best Election Coverage” for its spring election coverage.
Elsewhere, 103.5 FM and producers/hosts Sara Milewski and Tenisha Winn took home a third place award for “Remote Broadcast from the 2022 Sun Prairie Multicultural Fair” in the category of “Best Live On-Site Broadcast Remote” and versatile producer Mark Gonwa won third place for “Best Radio Show” for his live Friday afternoon program “Now You Know.”
“Sun Prairie News,” produced and hosted by Dan Presser, has now won WBA’s “Best Newscast” for three years in a row – exactly the same number of years the show has been in production.
Of his win for Best Sports Coverage, announcer Tim Perko said, “I was very humbled and thrilled with the award. I have to give a lot of thanks and credit to Jeff and the terrific support team of Rachel Packard, Colin Lessig and Mara Trusty at the Media Center for all their help and support. They make everything very enjoyable.”
Of their contributions that led to the best election coverage award, Bill Baker said, “Andy Schoenherr and I are proud to be recognized in our category by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association, but the awards were not achieved alone. If not for the support from the professionals at The Sun Prairie Media Center, success would not be possible. SPMC is a vital organization for Sun Prairie.” Schoenherr added, “It was incredibly exciting to come home with first place. I already know that the staff and volunteers at the Sun Prairie Media Center are a top notch group of people, but being recognized by other professional broadcasters is great validation and a tremendous honor.”
SPMC director Jeff Robbins clarified one additional point about the WBA awards: “Our TV stations are not considered broadcast because cable is the main means of distributing them. So we don’t enter in the television side of the WBA awards. But our radio station is considered broadcast, so we are eligible in WBA’s radio categories.”
Want to be part of this award-winning team? The Sun Prairie Media Center is currently looking for radio and podcast producers to take advantage of its studio facilities and knowledgeable staff. Anyone interested should call 608-837-4193, email 103.5 FM Production Manager Colin Lessig at clessig@cityofsunprairie.com, or check out sunprairiemediacenter.com, where program ideas can be submitted directly to SPMC staff.
Episodes of 103.5 FM’s award-winning programs can be accessed for on-demand listening by downloading the Sun Prairie Media Center app, available for free from the App Store or Google Play.