Nominees for BT Digital Music Awards announced
Earlier this week, BT revealed the nominations for the annual BT Digital Music Awards. This means that fans can now vote for their favourite artists and music sites at www.btdma.com.
This year's nominees are a showcase of internationally acclaimed UK artists and, with 21 categories, competition is fiercer than ever, with the likes of Cheryl Cole and Alexandra Burke not only fighting it out for Best Female Artist, but also up against each other for Best Song.
Plan B, Chipmunk and Taio Cruz have all been nominated in both the Best Song and Best Male Artist category, in which Robbie Williams and Dizzee Rascal have also been put forward. New celeb couple Rochelle Wiseman (The Saturdays) and Marvin Humes (JLS) will battle against each other to win Best Group, whilst a host of new talent including Example and Professor Green will strive to be named Best Newcomer.
BBC wins nominations
In the categories decided by the official judges, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's Gorillaz pick up multiple nominations, alongside Australian rock/drum n bass band Pendulum and BT DMA regulars, Muse. Meanwhile the BBC wins nominations for its Glastonbury 2010 coverage and its 2009 Ukulele Prom, as well as nods for its podcasts and shows by 6Music DJs Adam & Joe, and Radio 2's Jamie Cullum.
Among the newcomers heralded by the judges, Marina & The Diamonds will fight it out against The XX, Professor Green, deadmau5, Tinie Tempah and The Temper Trap.
New categories
This year sees the introduction of some new categories, including Best Place to Hear, Discover and Buy Music, Best Event and Best Music App to reflect the increased audience engagement and rapid developments in technology that the music industry has seen in recent years, enabling music fans to access their favourite music when and where they want.
Also, anyone wishing to enter a music site in the People's Choice Awards can go to www.btdma.com to download an interactive "voting button", which enables website visitors to vote directly for the site by simply clicking on the button.
The awards will be held at Camden's Roundhouse on Thursday, 30 September, and fans will be able to catch all the action when the awards are broadcast on ITV2 on Saturday, 2 October.
Lee Thompson, BT Vision's head of music said: "At BT, we are very proud to be celebrating and supporting the music industry with the BT Digital Music Awards. The breadth of incredible new home-grown talent that's emerged in the past 12 months, selling huge amounts of digital audio and video downloads, makes this year's BT Digital Music Awards nominations list our best ever."
As part of its partnership with the music industry, BT is restricting participation in the awards to sites and services that have licensed music from official sources, ensuring that artists are properly rewarded for their work.
