Student radio DJ Philippa Treverton-Jones has been plucked from obscurity to present on a national radio station.

The third-year Nottingham politics student has been working on Nottingham‘s university radio station, URN. It was crowned best student radio station this year, but that hardly prepared her for news she is to replace Andrew Collins on BBC 6 Music.

Jones won the Best Specialist Show category at the annual Student Radio Awards (SRAs) with her new bands show, ‘Unsigned‘. She will take over the chart show on BBC 6, with her first show on Sunday 8th April, but is confident that the job will not impact on her studies. “I’ll be going once a week to London to record the show,” she explained. “It won't need too much preparation, so that's good.”

Jones was planning a gap year after completing her finals, but landing the job with 6 Music has changed all that. “I’m going to try and get more involved with the station when I graduate,” she said. “I will be concentrating on the radio thing.” Jones is in no doubt that her time at URN and her success at the SRAs was integral to her getting the job with 6 Music. “URN has definitely opened doors,” she said, adding of the SRAs: “It gives student radio stations something to work towards. The association allows little old Philippas to be exposed and offered chances - had I not been part of the awards I'd still be tinkering away in my own URN world. It can act as a middleman between the industry and student stations and that's how I've been able to progress.”

Chris Sawyer, who was the programme controller for URN, believes Jones benefited from the increasing positivity towards the student radio sector from national organisations like the BBC and GCap Media, who currently employ recent ex-members of URN in various capacities, including broadcast assistants, presenters, producers and newsreaders. He explained: “Andy Parfitt, the boss at Radio 1, told [URN] we were the stand-out winners. The judges saw just how much everyone at the station cares about what they're doing.” Sawyer believes things can only get better for student radio.

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