Brit Awards 2010

Brit Awards 2010 was the 30th edition of the British Phonographic Industry's annual Brit Awards. The awards ceremony was held at Earls Court in London for the last time. The ceremony was broadcast live on ITV on Tuesday 16 February 2010. It was hosted by Peter Kay with Fearne Cotton doing the side of stage coverage. ITV2 broadcast an after show highlights programme immediately after the main broadcast. BBC Radio 1 had official radio coverage throughout the day in the run up to the evening's show, with Scott Mills and Greg James on the Red Carpet.

The ceremony was broadcast live, but with a short delay to enable any offensive language to be cut. This occurred several times during the course of the evening, most notably when Liam Gallagher collected the Best Album of 30 Years award and also during Lily Allen's acceptance speech for Best British Female.

The ITV show drew 5.8 million viewers between 8pm and 10pm, which was a 21.9% share of the evening, topping the 5.18 million (21.7%) drawn in for the 2009 ceremony, but still down on the 6.07 million (24.4%) of 2008. The ITV2 Brits Encore show at 10pm drew 776,000 viewers, a 3.8% share.

Outstanding Contribution to Music

 * Robbie Williams

Liam Gallagher and Peter Kay
At the 2010 Brits, Liam Gallagher made a surprise appearance to accept his award for Best Brits album of the past 30 years. After thanking all of his former bandmates (apart from brother Noel) and declaring his fans "the best fans in the fucking world", he gave his award to a lucky fan and hurled his microphone into the audience; a search for the microphone caused a 10‑minute delay. After walking off stage, host Peter Kay reacted to Liam's actions by saying "what a knobhead".