Tia Shenton named RTS Young Technologist Of The Year 2025

Since beginning her broadcast engineering career as a degree apprentice at Channel 4, Shenton has played an instrumental role in a number of key achievements for the broadcaster, including creating and supporting a simulcast stream of the UK General Election that reached over 750,000 viewers, and conducting research into UHD HDR for streaming services. Her success in this role resulted in Shenton receiving a nomination for the RISE Student of the Year award, as well as a Highly Commended recognition in the Live Production Young Talent of the Year category of the 2024 Broadcast Tech Innovation Awards.

As an active member of the industry, Shenton spoke at SMPTE’s Young Innovators session in 2024 and served as Project Manager for the IBC Connect and Produce Anywhere (CAPA) Accelerator 2024 programme, coordinating deployments across Formula E, MPTS 2024 and IBC 2025 – speaking at the latter two about the Accelerator programme. Shenton also recently became an official IET volunteer, where she is project managing the IBC Incubator: Changing the Game Again! and producing her first panel session for IBC 2025. As the winner of the RTS Young Technologist of the Year award for 2025, she will receive an all-expenses paid trip to IBC 2025.

The runner-up for the RTS Young Technologist of the Year Award – and recipient of the Coffey Award for Excellence in Technology 2025 – is Sean Jones, Broadcast Engineer Apprentice at Channel 4. Sean began his apprenticeship in 2022 with a focus on audio, which culminated in his graduate project where Sean led research into dialogue intelligibility, using viewer feedback to identify key issues. Sean later joined the IBC Accelerator programme as a Champion and played a leading role in designing and delivering networked audio architecture for the CAPA II project across live events.

Chair of the RTS Young Technologist of the Year Award Jury, Terry Marsh, said: “Tia Shenton brings a rare mix of hands-on engineering, creative curiosity, and initiative well beyond her years. She’s helped deliver live broadcast innovations, spoken at major industry events, and led work on accessibility with her digital BSL signer. She’s not just technically gifted — she’s thoughtful, committed, and already shaping the future of broadcasting.”

Shenton said: "I want to thank the RTS and panellist judges for awarding me the title of Young Technologist of the Year 2025. As somebody who grew up in the creative world of production, I was familiar with the RTS and the amazing work and support it offers the community. It is that fact which makes me even more proud in my personal career journey to have been awarded a technology focused award from the organisation. I want to thank my amazing team at Channel 4 who pushed me throughout my degree apprenticeship and nurtured my nature to be curious and eager. And I hope that within my new role at Techex I will be able to grow more and be apart of the industry push into the future."

The Young Technologist Award was established by the RTS with funds received from the family of A.M. Beresford-Cooke – a distinguished engineer who significantly contributed to the development of British broadcasting technology through his work on towers and masts for VHF and UHF transmission. The aim of the award is to advance education in the science, practice, technology, and art of television and its allied fields.

To learn more about the IBC Accelerator Programme, including this year’s Special Incubator Project: Changing the Game Again!, click here.