The BBC are having a massive strop which has resulted in a series of furious emails being circulated around Television Centre about the RTS journalism awards, with allegations of juries being biased report The Guardian.

The memos follow what the head of television news, Peter Horrocks, told his staff was, "one of the grimmest nights in terms of BBC TV News performance," at Tuesday night's ceremony.

The BBC have started looking at the reasons why the television news department won just one award. For the record, that honour was cameraman of the year. The emails reveal the extent to which the BBC feels wounded by winning just three awards overall, and the revamped News 24 losing out to Sky News in being named channel of the year. In an email to staff, the BBC News 24 morning editor, Simon Waldman, said: "Peter H [Horrocks] led a discussion at the 9.15 in the wake of what he called 'one of the grimmest nights in terms of BBC TV News performance' at the RTS. As you know, TV News won NOTHING - apart from the admirable Darren Conway winning cameraman of the year (again). Peter said it was particularly inexplicable, galling, and hurtful for our teams that News 24 had not won channel of the year - given the way we'd performed over the last 12 months, and the way the audience gap over Sky had grown; and also inexplicable that our Lebanon coverage was not even shortlisted." Sour grapes anyone?

Waldman went on: "There was a brief debate about the way the RTS juries are 'stacked' with an inbuilt anti-BBC bias (C4 and ITN; Five and Sky each get represented) - but we concentrated on two things: 1) we'd prefer to have the audiences than the gongs; 2) to get the gongs we need more domestic exclusive stories - and we need to showcase them." He added: "Sky, apparently, decide in advance that some hours are to be 'RTS hours' - and they throw everything at them. Much scepticism over whether we should follow suit."

Waldman then said Horrocks had said TV news should "concentrate on uncovering more exclusives" particularly "exclusives which 'challenge those in power' and which therefore challenge the perception that BBC News has too cosy a relationship with those in authority." The email added: "That, he thinks, is the type of original journalism that will win such prizes, and when we get those stories we have to make sure that we showcase them sufficiently." The News 24 controller, Kevin Bakhurst, also sent an email to staff yesterday, trying to boost morale and adding to the debate about the perceived attitude of RTS juries towards the BBC. "As you will also see, the BBC did pretty badly across the board and this reflects the kind of attitude towards the BBC that quite a few of us experienced on the juries from other broadcasters." Bakhurst went on: "I would like to thank you all for the way you have reacted to this, particularly since like me I'm sure you feel it isn't a realistic reflection of the channel's performance over the last 12 months. I have had messages from quite a few more impartial observers who are pretty gob-smacked!"

Bakhurst then said Sky's morale was low and some staff were interested in joining the BBC. "I spent a fair amount of time talking to the Sky News team at the dinner last night and they are very open about the damage that the Freeview decision could have on them. Many of them are very upset also about the way they have been treated by BSkyB: James Murdoch is visiting them today to try to explain the decision." [Mof Gimmers]