The ACRAs: Why it’s personal

There is an ACRA award sitting on the mantelpiece in our home. There used to be two.

I didn’t win them. My husband did. In those days they were called RAWARDs.

I say there used to be two, because one was stolen.

Last year, thieves ransacked our entire house, upending our furniture, our office, even our undies drawers.

They helped themselves to our computer hard drives, our personal papers … and the ACRA for Best On Air Team – Triple M’s Kevin Hillier & the D Generation.

I keep thinking it’ll turn up one day on Facebook Marketplace or in Cash Converters.

I guess we can be thankful they didn’t lay their grubby mits on Kev’s other award for Best Syndicated Program (Rocksat). Or the classic 80s mulleted photo of him receiving it, alongside then-New South Wales Premier Nick Greiner and radio syndication pioneer Tony McGinn, the man behind Take 40 Australia.

But these people who so clinically and ruthlessly invaded our privacy clearly thought there might be some kind of monetary value attached to the ACRA.

The reality is, you can’t put a price on an ACRA.

For me and for so many others, the demise of the Australian Commercial Radio Awards has only reinforced that their worth and meaning is special and personal.

As much as I still derive childish pleasure from telling Kevin that I like to bask in his reflected glory, industry recognition of this kind should be a great source of pride.

Let’s hope we can find a new way forward and that the ACRAs death knell doesn’t spell the end of radio people getting the recognition among their peers that they so richly deserve.

*Main image of Nick Greiner, Tony McGinn and Kevin Hiller: Collection of Kevin Hillier