York creative audio specialist Behear has announced the launch of the first Behear Indie Audio Awards (BIAAs), spotlighting innovation and collaboration in independent audio drama and promising a “chance to celebrate everything that is good and wholesome about the audio industry.”
Behear has pioneered the production of what it calls “dramatised audiobooks,” and the company has a dramatic origins story of its own to tell – the idea for going beyond the standard audiobook template came from a personal tragedy at the very heart of the company.
Owner and director Colin Sinclair takes up the narrative: “In 2016 one of our founders, Amy, was taking her son to school when she had a life changing event. A rock smashed through the windscreen of her car and hit her in the face. The end result was that Amy was left blind, Luckily her son was uninjured,” he explained. “Colin, me, her dad, had written a book and Amy could not read it. After some discussion the idea for Behear was born.
“I was an am-dram enthusiast and Amy was a dancer, and we loved the theatre. The way the characters brought stories to life with sound and music. Listening to audiobooks was ok but there was something missing, and that something was the magic of a full cast of actors with music and sound effects.
“We set up Behear to produce dramatised audiobooks. Taking each story, we split it into episodes, much like a series you get on the video streaming channels, Think Netflix without the pictures. We then give each character a voice and add the music and sound effects, something magical happened and the stories came to life.”
READ MORE: 5 Live Scottish crime podcast Gangster announces May ’25 Costa del Sol double killing bonus episode
That wasn’t the end to their format-bending approach. Sinclair says that, talking to authors and other creators, the team soon realised they were getting a raw deal from the big audiobook producers, sometimes getting just pennies for each story sold. So, they built a platform that pays what he says is the best royalty rate in the industry – up to 80% of the inbound revenue.
“We share the costs of producing the dramatised audio stories and work in collaboration with authors and voice artists to build an audience for the amazing stories,” he explains. “We can subsidise the creation by as much as 60%. We are passionate about getting the best possible deal and product for everyone.”
Sinclair added: “We want to make a difference in the industry and give creators the credit and financial rewards they deserve. We think that all creators deserve to be paid fairly for all the effort and hard work that goes into creating such amazing stories.”
Behear has already been nominated for a Grassroots Production Award at AudiUK’s 2023 Audio Production Awards, and towards the end of 2024 secured the opportunity to create the first book in a series from the multi-million copy selling, award-winning author JD Kirk (best known for the DCI Jack Logan series of Scottish crime thrillers). The company will now produce six more of his stories.
Kirk said: “I’ll be honest, I had my doubts at first. Who, after all, could replace Angus King as the voice of the books. The answer, thankfully, is ‘nobody’ since Angus still does the narration, but with a cast of brilliant actors providing the character voices. The finished result sits somewhere between a book and a radio play, making the story more immersive than ever before, and all my doubts have been put to rest. This is how all audiobooks should be!”
Behear has also secured an agreement with “a US bestselling author” to produce 25 books as full-cast dramatised episodic versions, as well as standard audiobook versions.
Now, Behear hopes to recognise its contemporaries through the new BIAAs, with awards in 10 categories:
• Best Male Voiceover (VO)
• Best Female Voiceover (VO)
• Best Ensemble Cast
• Best Audio Drama
• Best Dramatised Audiobook
• Best Audio for SFX and Music
• Best Audio Company / Individual
• Best Startup Audio Company/Individual
• Best Podcast Promoting Full Audio Experiences
• Best Audio Script
READ MORE: Radio Merseyside Orient Express host goes national with Radio 4 Pick of the Week hosting spot
Sinclair added that the awards hope to celebrate the creatives within the industry as a whole, not just the large corporations or those that monopolise the distribution and sale of audio content, and that talent, drive, ingenuity and passion for the industry and the art will be the driving factors behind the awards rather than commercial success.
An impressive line up of judges includes multi-award-winning radio drama producer/director and former BBC Studios creative director Andrew Mark Sewell; Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and double US Billboard #1 artist John Parr, of St Elmo’s Fire fame; Jason Haigh-Ellery, an Olivier Award-winning producer and founder of Big Finish, the world’s largest independent audio drama company who has produced over 3,000 titles including Doctor Who, The Avengers, and Stargate; Game of Thrones and Ackley Bridge star Meghan Parkinson, and Sinclair himself, who added:
“It’s the multitude of independent creators who make magic happen on a daily basis with the audio creations they produce that we want to celebrate. We at Behear know how hard it is to get your content noticed and heard, while at the same time managing to monetise it in a meaningful way. So, we want you to know that people are here to listen to your content and support your growth. We are all in this together.”
Find out more about the inaugural BIAAs and how to enter here.
