About the Sandford St Martin Awards
The Sandford St Martin Awards are the UK’s most prestigious broadcast awards for radio, TV and online programmes and content that explore religious, spiritual or ethical themes.
Established in 1978, they are the only awards in the UK that specifically seek out the best content that supports religious literacy across communities or promotes a better understanding of how people identify or define their place in the world, and that welcome entries about any and all faiths – or none.
Every year we receive hundreds of entries from producers and content makers working in news, current affairs, factual, the arts, music, drama and comedy – as well as from teams producing specifically ‘religious’ commissions. What they have in common is their commitment to excellence and their willingness to engage with what people believe.
To be eligible for the Awards, entries must be broadcast content made by a UK or ROI based broadcasting organisation or production house, and have been first publicly broadcast, screened or published to a UK audience during the previous calendar year.
Full details about how to enter the 2025 Awards competition, the categories and criteria can be found here.
In 2025, for the first time since lockdown and after ceremonies held in East London’s Spitalfields, Manchester and Southwark Cathedral, the Awards ceremony will be returning to its traditional home at Lambeth Palace.
Follow us on social media to find out more, or sign up for our newsletter and updates about our forthcoming events.
Or, if you’re looking for inspiration, visit our archive to watch Jimmy McGovern, Lenny Henry, Stormzy, Neil MacGregor, Joan Bakewell, or Lyse Doucet receive their awards.
2024 Award Winners and shortlisted programmes
On the evening of 17 June 2024 broadcasters, journalists, content-makers and representatives from the UK’s many different faith communities gathered at Southwark Cathedral in London to celebrate the best broadcasting about religion, ethics or spirituality. As the Trust’s Chair, Dr Tony Stoller, noted in his welcome for this year’s awards ceremony:
“There’s perhaps never been a time in recent memory when there was a greater need for religious awareness and understanding. In the Middle East, India, Russia and Nigeria, for different reasons and in different ways, religion and religious identity are determining how people view their own but also our place in the world.
Against this backdrop the entries for this year’s awards competition are a showcase for the excellence of UK content-makers working in this sector. Whether it is through cutting-edge journalism, creative storytelling or societal impact, they prove that the audience for good religiously literate content is more diverse and more engaged than ever before.”
You can find out more about our most recent winners and finalists and watch the overture from the ceremony and interviews with this year’s winners here. Or check out our social media using #sandford2024
Awards archive
After more than forty-five in the business, the Sandford St Martin Trust holds a unique record of recognising and celebrating the best broadcasting about religion, ethics and morality from across the UK. Our winners include some of the best programmes broadcast in the UK and come from all different genres – as well as “traditional” religious programming. You can read more about them in our Awards Archive.
