Category Archives: Brit awards

Horizon scandal victim uses Brits appearance to urge faster compensation

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Jo Hamilton presented a music award alongside Monica Dolan, who portrayed her in Mr Bates vs The Post Office

A former sub-post office operator has used an appearance at the Brit Awards to urge the speeding-up of compensation for those unfairly prosecuted as part of the Post Office IT scandal.

Jo Hamilton made her appeal alongside the actor Monica Dolan, who portrayed her in ITV’s hit dramatisation of the episode, Mr Bates vs The Post Office. The pair were presenting the first category of the evening at the O2 Arena in London.

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Brit awards 2024 – full list of winners

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The winners of every category at the 2024 Brits, updated as the ceremony progresses

• Brit awards 2024: women dominate as Raye scores record-smashing six wins
• Brit awards 2024: as it happened

Blur – The Ballad of Darren
J Hus – Beautiful and Brutal Yard
Little Simz – No Thank You
Raye – My 21st Century Blues – WINNER!
Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy

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Brit awards 2023: Harry Styles and Wet Leg triumph while Lizzo delivers the glitz – as it happened

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Fontaines DC, Aitch, Becky Hill and the 1975 also won gongs, while Tom Grennan flubbed it. Here’s all the action from the 43rd annual music awards

• Read the full report here
• The trouble with the Brits
• The night in pictures

Shania is here! And in a week where she has a UK No 1 album with Queen of Me to boot. She’s performed with Harry Styles in the past; wonder if they’ll have a redux (or if she’ll present him with one of the awards that he’ll inevitably walk away with tonight).

RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Bimini Bon-Boulash has arrived in extremely punk fashion, wearing a dress that transplants the colours of the trans pride flag onto the union jack – a nice little injection of chaos onto this year’s red carpet.

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Worthy winners aside, the Brits is struggling to keep pace with modern pop

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TikTok voting and gaming stars haven’t altered the music awards’ predictable roster of chart-toppers

• News: Adele sweeps gender-neutral Brit awards
• Liveblog: Brit awards 2022 – as it happened

The actual Brit awards ceremony has changed its complexion over the years: from the old-guard backslapping of the 80s to the boozy chaos of the 90s and early 00s. Today’s offering is slickly professional – hipper than it once was, less tone-deaf when it comes to representation, but not a hair out of place to the point of seeming faintly uneventful, unless you count the sight of Anne-Marie falling over, or the sound of Ed Sheeran gamely attempting to turn Bad Habits into a metal anthem with the aid of Bring Me the Horizon: even the person in charge of the mute button for swearing had an easy night. There was a lot of talk from host Mo Gilligan about hedonistic behaviour, but not many actual signs of it. Nor did anyone attempt to say anything controversy-stirring or political.

This year, the onus appeared to have shifted slightly again. In what was clearly an attempt to attract a younger audience – an audience that don’t watch music shows on television – there were categories voted for by fans via TikTok; elsewhere, there were “afterparties” starring tweenage favourite PinkPantheress on gaming platform Roblox and the unmissable opportunity to buy Brits-related NFTs.

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‘And the loser is …’: Are music awards shows in crisis?

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With plummeting ratings and accusations of racial and gender bias, the Brits and Grammys are facing a battle to stay relevant

Once upon a time, the Brit awards and the Grammys were an annual staple in the TV calendar of even the most casual music fan. Drawing millions of viewers, the ceremonies offered a feast of entertainment, ranging from the unpredictable to the spectacular. Think Chumbawamba chucking a bucket of ice water over John Prescott at the 1998 Brits or Lady Gaga emerging from an egg at the Grammys in 2011. More recently, Brits sets by Stormzy and Dave have marked an important shift in mainstream recognition of Black British talent.

For audiences, however, the shine seems to have worn off. Last year’s ITV broadcast of the Brits, which was postponed from February to May due to Covid-19, recorded 2.9 million viewers – a figure that plunged for the fourth year running. The 2021 Grammys were the lowest rated in history, delivering an audience of just 8.8 million viewers for CBS, down a staggering 53% on the year prior. (These declines aren’t exclusive to music award ceremonies: the Oscars also recorded a 58.3% dip in viewers last year.)

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Women dominate 2021 Brit awards as Dua Lipa tops winners

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2020’s heavily male ceremony reversed with wins for Arlo Parks, Haim and Billie Eilish, as Little Mix become first all-woman winner of British group

Dua Lipa has topped the winners at the 2021 Brit awards, calling for Boris Johnson to approve “a fair pay rise” for frontline NHS staff as she picked up gongs including the top prize of British album for her chart-dominating disco spectacular Future Nostalgia.

She also won female solo artist, bringing her total Brit award tally to five and cementing her position as one of the UK’s most successful and critically acclaimed pop stars.

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