Radio 1's influential weekend dance DJ Pete Tong lifted the Music Broadcaster Award, beating his station colleagues Tim Westwood and Jo Whiley to the prize.
Freeman, 72, was handed the prize at the Sony Radio Awards in London by Dale Winton, the broadcaster who has taken over his long-running Pick Of The Pops show on BBC Radio 2.
He told guests that Freeman - catchphrase "Not arf!" - was "a man who has served, and is held in the highest affection by, quite literally, every sector of our industry".
The award to Australian-born Freeman, who continues to front Radio 2's Their Greatest Bits after 40 years of broadcasting, was one of the highlights of the ceremony.
Radio 1's influential weekend dance DJ Pete Tong lifted the Music
Broadcaster Award, beating his station colleagues Tim Westwood and Jo Whiley to
the prize.
For Tong it was the second year running that he had won a Sony. Judges said: "Pete Tong has redefined dance music radio, making it the new pop with his cool, credible and alternative style."
Jonathan Ross's Radio 2 programme took the Music Presentation Award less than a year after he began at the station.
The News Award went to Radio 5 Live's coverage of the Soho bomb last year,
presented by Brian Hayes.
Judges praised the "well-judged coverage of a major breaking story, combining eyewitness accounts with impressive analysis".
Commercial station Classic FM picked up the prize for national station of the year, after just missing out to Radio 2 last year.
Local stations were also honoured, with the BBC's Radio Foyle, which broadcasts in Northern Ireland, picking up the award for small local station of the year.
London's Kiss 100 took the prize for larger stations, a year after the dance station hit controversy when it relaunched with a more mainstream sound.
Its morning DJ Bam Bam - whose real name is Peter Poulton - won two prizes, which included beating Zoe Ball to the breakfast music show prize.
BBC Radio Merseyside's Roger Phillips beat competition from radio heavyweights like Radio 4's John Humphrys and Radio 5 Live's Andrew Neil to take the news and talk broadcaster award. Judges said: "His interview skills are very subtle yet very effective."
Radio 4 took four titles - the Speech Award, Short Form Award, the Drama Award and Feature Award.
The overall Sony Gold Award for services to the radio industry - won last year by Zoe Ball - went to Classic FM's chief exectutive Ralph Bernard.
As chairman of the Digital One consortium of commercial stations, he has been instrumental in promoting the move to digital radio.
The Awards: