Petra Piipari, who died suddenly, nominated at Radiogala

Petra Piipari passed away at the age of 49 All Over Press

The nominees for this year’s Radio Gala were announced on Thursday. In the annual event of the commercial radio industry, the most significant authors and actions of the past year are rewarded.

In four categories, the candidates have been selected based on public voting. Candidates for other categories have been selected by a separate expert jury.

Petra Piipari, who managed the contents of Hitmix and Loop, who passed away at the end of last April, is nominated for the best program manager of last year. According to information from Iltalehti, Piipari had a sudden attack of illness in the middle of the working day and died in the hospital the next morning. He was only 49 years old when he died.

Before moving to Hitmix and Loop’s program manager, Piipari worked in front-of-house positions at Bauer Media. During his career, he has also worked as a presenter on the Radio City channel, among others.

With Piipari, they compete for the title of program manager of the year Mikko Harjunpää (Genuine Iskelmä), Niina Jokiaho (Radio Nova), Mika Kuki (Radio Pooki), Paula Niska (Radio Rock), Ari Ojala (Iskelmä) and Sami Virtanen (Radio Suomipop).

Iltalehti caught up with the CEO of RadioMedia ry, which organizes the Radiogaala by Stefan Möller to comment on Piipari’s selection for the program manager of the year shortlist.

– Of course, the background to being nominated is, first of all, the fact that the company has announced him as a candidate. Last year, Petra managed to stay in her position for four months, but unfortunately, just before May Day, she passed away suddenly. In my opinion, the jury is aware of the situation, what it is about, and has used the metrics in use as an aid in its evaluation. And in the light of that information, the jury has discussed what she did last year and concluded that Petra has deserved her nomination, Möller clarifies.

– Of course, the fact that Petra hasn’t been in her position for a whole year must be acknowledged, but that shouldn’t be an obstacle to the candidacy either. In reality, Petra’s fine work continues to bear fruit and thus her work speaks for itself.

According to Möller, at the Radio Gala on March 31, Petra Piipar will be remembered in the same way as other radio industry professionals who have died during the past year.

– Our industry has grown enough now that one section of the gala will be the In memoriam section, where dear colleagues are remembered. In the case of Petra, of course, this has been a particularly hard shock for her colleagues, since it happened so suddenly and the world is not fair when you leave at such a young age.

– Petra will be on display at the Radio Gala and will certainly bring everyone’s emotions to the surface.

You can watch all categories and nominees of the Radio Gala from this link.