The Edinburgh TV Festival has unveiled the shortlist for its TV Awards with Lenny Henry named as the recipient of this year’s Outstanding Achievement Award.
The shortlist for this year’s Awards is led by the BBC with 25 nominations across the broadcaster and individual talent categories. ITV amassed 15 nominations and Channel 4 14 with Netflix receiving 12, Apple TV+ 5 and Disney+ 4 nominations.
Sir Lenny Henry’s Outstanding Achievement Award celebrates a career that spans five decades through comedy, presenting, writing and acting, with roles in acclaimed series such as, The Rings of Power, Broadchurch, The Syndicate, Chef! and The Witcher: The Blood Origin, as well as stage performances including The Comedy of Errors at The National, Fences at the Duchess Theatre and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the Donmar Warehouse. Beyond his on-screen achievements, he has been an advocate for diversity and inclusion in the industry, using his platform – and his television production company Esmerelda – to champion underrepresented voices and drive meaningful change. His co-founding of Comic Relief has raised over £1 billion for global causes since 1985, and he has established a centre for Media Diversity at Birmingham City University.
Sir Lenny Henry said: “I’d like to thank the Edinburgh TV Festival and all who sail in her for this magnificent honour. I’m very humbled to receive it and will wear a kilt and go commando to celebrate. Excelsior. Big love.”
The ceremony will be hosted by double Emmy-nominated actor, comedian and writer Nick Mohammed. Nick Mohammed said: “I honestly couldn’t be more thrilled and honoured to be hosting the TV Festival awards this year. I can’t promise Mr. Swallow won’t make an appearance but – frankly – given how well he went down at the BAFTA Film Awards last year, surely this can’t go any worse. But good luck everyone!”
Nominated for Best Drama are Adolescence, Baby Reindeer, Blue Lights, Lockerbie: A Search for Truth, Rivals and Slow Horses, while in the Best Comedy category Alma’s Not Normal, Big Boys, Dinosaur, Ludwig, Mr Bigstuff and We Are Lady Parts will compete for the top spot.
The Best International Drama category nominations go to After the Party, Dope Thief, Mussolini: Son of the Century, Ripley, Severance and The Studio.
Nominations for Best Popular Factual Series include DNA Journey, Getting Filthy Rich, Go Back To Where You Came From, Rob and Rylan’s Grand Tour, Sort Your Life Out and Swiped: The School that Banned Smart Phones; in the Best Entertainment Series category, formats take the lead with nominations going to I Kissed a Girl, Last One Laughing, Taskmaster, The Graham Norton Show, The Piano and The Traitors.
In the Best Documentary category sponsored by the Farm, this year’s nominees include 7/7: The London Bombings, Bombing Brighton: The Plot to Kill Thatcher, Children of the Cult (Exposure), D-Day: The Unheard Tapes, Jamali Maddix: Follow the Leader and Our Land: Israel’s Other War.
In a new category introduced this year, Batch from Scratch: Cooking for Less, Champions Full Gallop, Cooking with the Stars, DNA Journey and M&S Dress the Nation are all nominated for the inaugural Best Branded Entertainment Award.
The Best TV Actor Drama category includes both Danny Dyer and Katherine Parkinson for Rivals, Richard Gadd and Jessica Gunning for Baby Reindeer, and Owen Cooper and Stephen Graham in Adolescence. For Best TV Actor Comedy, the nominations include Anjana Vasan in We Are Lady Parts, both Lucy Punch and Philippa Dunne in Amandaland, Nabhaan Rizwan in Kaos, Oliver Savell in Changing Ends and Sophie Willan in Alma’s Not Normal.
The Breakthrough Performance category showcases a wave of emerging talent. The nominations feature Ashley Storrie for Dinosaur, Bella Maclean for Rivals, Maximilian Fairley for Unforgotten, Owen Cooper for Adolescence, Sekou Diaby for Boarders and Thaddea Graham for Bad Sisters.
The shortlist for Best Entertainment Presenter features presenting duo Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly for Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, Claudia Winkleman for The Traitors, Graham Norton for The Graham Norton Show, and both Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan for Rob & Rom Vs… Best Factual Presenter nominations include Joe Tracini for Me and the Voice in My Head, Mobeen Azhar for The Soldiers That Saved Britain, Munya Chawawa for How to Survive a Dictator: North Korea and Poppy Jay for Young, British and Anti-Abortion.
This year’s Climate Storytelling nominees cover a range of subject areas and includes, Big Brother, Emmerdale, Gabon: Earth’s Last Chance, Our Living World, Ready Meals, What They Really Mean For You and Spirit Rangers.
Another new category for the 2025 awards will honour the Agency of the Year, with the nominees including Insanity, Mirador Talent Group and Strange Town Agency.
Nominated for Small Indie of the Year are Afro-Mic Productions, Alleycats TV, Black Camel Pictures, Listen, Rockerdale Studios and Synchronicity Films. Production Company of the Year nominees include Big Talk Studios, Clapperboard Studios, CPL Productions, See-Saw Films, SISTER and Warp Films, and Production Group of the Year sees Banijay UK, BBC Studios Productions, Fremantle UK, ITV Studios, STV Studios and Universal International Studios all nominated for the award.
The nominations for Streamer of the Year include BBC iPlayer, Channel 4, ITVX, Netflix and U, with BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Scotland, ITV1, Channel 4 and 5 all battling it out for the coveted Channel of the Year Award.
Special awards will be presented in Edinburgh including TV Moment of the Year and the Outstanding Achievement Award, awarded to Sir Lenny Henry. The Edinburgh TV Awards Ceremony, supported by Cast & Crew, will be held at the EICC on Thursday 21st August.
Picture credit: Jake Turney/Comic Relief
Jon Creamer
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