Mr Bates Vs The Post Office leads Broadcasting Press Guild Awards nominees
Mr Bates Vs The Post Office leads the pack for Broadcasting Press Guild (BPG) Awards nominations after the ITV drama helped focus attention on the subpostmasters who were wrongly prosecuted during the Horizon IT scandal.
More than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted by the Post Office and given criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015, as Fujitsu's faulty system made it appear as though money was missing at their branches.
The drama, which shone a light on the issue, has been nominated in the best drama series category – but it will face tough competition from Netflix hit Baby Reindeer, Sky Atlantic thriller Day Of The Jackal, Disney+ drama Rivals, and BBC historical drama Wolf Hall.
And the nominees for Best Single Drama/Mini Series are: Breathtaking (@itvstudios )Scoop (@NetflixUK )A Very Royal Scandal (@primevideouk ) Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (@BBCOne , @NetflixUK ) pic.twitter.com/URiojBJXg0
— Broadcasting Press Guild (@BPGPressGuild) February 25, 2025
Actor Toby Jones has received a nod for the best actor gong for his role as former subpostmaster Sir Alan Bates, one of more than 550 claimants who took legal action against the Post Office.
Jones will go up against Danny Dyer for his role as Freddie Jones in Rivals, Oscar-winners Eddie Redmayne and Sir Mark Rylance for their parts in Day Of The Jackal and Wolf Hall respectively, and Lennie James for BBC drama, Mr Loverman.
Monica Dolan, who played fellow former subpostmaster Jo Hamilton in Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, is up for best actress and Gwyneth Hughes is up for best writer for her work on the show.
Dolan has also been recognised for her role in BBC's A Ghost Story For Christmas, while Jessica Gunning is nominated for Baby Reindeer, Ambika Mod for Netflix hit One Day, Katherine Parkinson for Rivals and Anna Maxwell Martin for her roles in detective comedy Ludwig, crime series Until I Kill You and the Gavin And Stacey Christmas special.
The second series of hit BBC reality series The Traitors is up for best entertainment show alongside Clarkson's Farm, Mortimer And Whitehouse: Gone Fishing and series two of The Piano.
The best single drama or mini series category will also be hotly contested as it will see A Very Royal Scandal, Netflix Duke Of York drama Scoop, ITV medical drama Breathtaking and Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl go head-to-head.
Meanwhile, Boybands Forever, Michael Palin: Into Nigeria, Strike: The Uncivil War and Surviving Oct 7th: We Will Dance Again are all up for the best single documentary or mini-series gong.
Over in the audio awards, five women are in contention for the best radio presenter award: Sara Cox for her BBC Radio 2 Drive Time show; Paula Harriott for The Secret Life of Prisons; Ellen E Jones for BBC Radio 4's Screenshot; Jenny Kleeman for BBC Radio 4's The Gift; and Kate Molleson for Composer Of The Week on BBC Radio 3 and Front Row on Radio 4.
BPG chair Manori Ravindran said: 'Celebrating the bold, the brilliant, and the unforgettable, the 2025 BPG Awards nominations highlight the power of storytelling across television, streaming, and audio.
'Coveted by the industry, these awards stand apart as they are chosen independently by the experts who cover TV and audio for a living — the critics, correspondents, and writers of the UK media.
'We're delighted to bring back the BPG Awards as a newly imagined evening event this year and look forward to toasting the bright lights of the industry.'
The winners will be presented with their awards at an ceremony on Thursday March 20 in London.
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