The Winners of the 2009 AIBs

18 November 2009

The Association for International Broadcasting announced the winners of its annual global media excellence awards at a gala event in London on 4 November 2009. The AIBs recognise creativity and innovation in global broadcasting across TV, radio, cross-media, marketing and technology.

The AIBs are unique in broadcasting because of their independence from commercial interests – an independent panel of judges consisting of respected professionals from the broadcasting and wider industries selected the winners among more than 200 entries initially submitted from 26 countries as diverse as Argentina, France, India, UAE, USA, to name but a few.

Categories covered by the ‘AIBs’ include separate awards for radio and television, in current affairs, coverage of a single news event, creative features, and personality of the year, as well as awards for innovation in marketing, use of technology and cross-media productions.

The Awards event was sponsored by Bloomberg TV and hosted by Bloomberg anchor Francine Lacqua and attended by senior executives, producers and journalists from media organisations around the world.

The AIB International Media Excellence Award winners were:

Clearest coverage of a single news event – television

Winner

BBC Persian TV (UK) for The elections that shook Iran

—“a young channel mastering a huge challenge given the reporting restrictions and the vilification of the channel by the Iranian press”—

Highly commended

TV2 (Norway) for Children of Gaza

—“painful and touching”—

VRT (Belgium) for Villa Politica

—” mesmerising political drama unfolding on your screen”—

Clearest coverage of a single news event – radio

Winner

RFE/RL (Czech Republic) for Special coverage of the Azeri referendum

—“facing some tough hurdles in trying to reach into countries where the press is not as free as it should be”—

Highly commended

Voice of America for Coverage of the war in Sri Lanka

—“reporting that’s thoroughly useful to audiences, and
creates a deeper insight into the conflict”—

Most creative specialist genre – television

Winner

Pyramedia (UAE) for The Prince of Poets

—“astounding”— —“fantastic”—

Highly commended

Luxe TV (Luxembourg) for Lifestyle

—“stylish presentation”—

VTV (Ghana) for Make me a success – enterprise challenge

—“entertainment cleverly combined with education”

Most creative specialist genre – radio

Winner

Deutsche Welle (Germany) for Family affairs – how to become a political player

—“true creativity”—

Highly commended

Voice of Nigeria (Nigeria) for Kiddies’ voices – Africa fit for the child

—“passionate, unique and engaging, with creative use of poetry and dialogue”—

BBC World Service (UK) for The trouble with money

—“highly informative and strong editing helps to convey complex issues”—

Best creative feature – television

Winner

Rockhopper TV (UK) for Love in a time of HIV – I love NY

—“sensitive treatment of a difficult subject”—

Highly commended

CBC Radio-Canada (Canada) for Sunday with Darwin

—“informative dramatisation with excellent editing”—

Deutsche Welle TV (Germany) for Walled in – Germany’s inner borders

—“excellent animation”—

Best creative feature – radio

Winner

Tinderbox Productions (UK) for The counterfeiter’s tale

—“an astonishing story – one that needs to be told”—

Highly commended

Deutsche Welle (Germany) for On skis to the North Pole

—“great use of sound to tell an incredible journey”—

Radio Netherlands Worldwide (Netherlands) for The face of forgiveness

—“great story about redemption”—

Most innovative technology – sponsored by Bloomberg TV

Winner

France 24 (France) for World pioneer on the iPhone

—“brilliant use of a particular technology to expand the channel’s audience”—

Highly commended

E4 (UK) for Skins Messenger

—“brilliant and innovative support for the programme”—

NDTV (India) for Yoda – Multi-production in a laptop

—“highly adaptable to others in the industry”—

Best mobile or cross-media production

Winner

RTHK (Hong Kong) for Deconstructing Hong Kong

—“captivating story-telling that genuinely uses multiple media platforms

in their best functions”—

Highly commended

BBC World Service Trust (UK) for Condom Condom

—“a naturally seamless production”—

Most creative marketing strategy

Winner

ABC Radio Australia (Australia) for Pacific break

—“an original campaign that delivered a small idea on a very big scale

across a huge region of the world with a compelling final destination”—

Highly commended

BBC (UK) for India election train

—“energetic and engaging campaign”—

Channel 4 (UK) for E4

—“brilliantly executed campaign”—

Best current affairs documentary – television

Winners

CBC Radio-Canada (Canada) for Baby boomers take on Mount Mera

—“simply inspiring”—

Channel 4 (UK) for Dispatches – Pakistan’s Taliban generation

—“powerful, risky and passionate”—

Highly commended

Arte (France) for Tibetan el Dorado

—“visually stunning, a great story about herbal medicines”—

United Nations for 21st century – Central African Republic: the forgotten crisis

—“an extremely engaging production”—

Channel 4 (UK) for Dispatches – Orphans of the Burma cyclone

—“a risky undertaking and very moving”—

Best current affairs documentary – radio

Winner

Tinderbox Productions (UK) for Children of God

—“a fascinating and frightening documentary about young preachers

that engages the listener from the outset”—

Highly commended

ABC (Australia) for Losing Erin

—“a well-produced insight into a much misunderstood area of mental illness”—

BBC (UK) for Lost voices of Tiananmen

—” giving a deeper understanding of events in China 20 years ago”—

Best historical documentary – television

Winner

WDR (Germany) for Tiananmen

—“informative and compelling production”—

Best investigative documentary – television

Winner

BBC World News (UK) for Korea, out of the North

—“compelling account of unfolding human tragedy”—

Highly commended

Hessischer Rundfunk (Germany) for The child, the death and the truth

—“well-crafted and well thought out – opens the debate

on one of the searing images of our time”—

RTE (Ireland) for Prime time investigates: Travellers on the edge

—“fascinating account of a culture rarely highlighted”—

Best investigative documentary – radio

Winner

Ruth Evans Productions (UK) for The new scramble for Africa

— “reminding listeners how the political and economic landscape

in Africa is changing”—

Highly commended

Radio Romania (Romania) for The poisonous water

—“a well-produced, ‘old school’ documentary”—

International TV personality of the year

Winner

Zeinab Badawi – BBC World News (UK)

—“a clear winner”—

AIB Editors’ Awards

Al Jazeera Children’s Channel (Qatar) – JCC, the first Pan-Arab ‘edutainment’ channel for 7 to 15 year olds received the AIB Editors’ Award in recognition of the channel’s innovative and inspirational approach to providing fun education television to a region of the world where children are underserved.

VRT News (Belgium) – VRT News has offered its viewers ground-breaking coverage of elections in Belgium. During the 2009 election coverage, barriers between presenters, politicians and voters were torn down, thanks to innovative and engaging presentation. For this reason, AIB decided that one of its prestigious and exclusive Editors’ Awards should go to the VRT News team.

The judges for the AIBs 2009 have a vast range of experience in different aspects of broadcasting and are drawn from all over the world. The full list is: Amir Jahangir, CEO, SAMAA TV, Pakistan; Danforth Austin, Director, Voice of America and Acting Director, International Broadcasting Bureau, US; Michael Joseph, CEO, Safaricom, Kenya; Billy Wright, Global Head Media & Games Partnerships, Nokia, UK; Hanh Tran, Chief Executive, Radio Australia, Australia; Nahida Nakad, Deputy Director, Arabic Service, France 24, France; Darby Sanchez, CEO, Globecast Asia, Singapore; Matteo Berlucchi, CEO, Livestation, UK; Alla Salehian, Director, Global Media Services – Associated Press Television, UK; Torsti Tenhunen, CEO, Hasan & Partners Oy, Finland; Dirk Beusch, Senior Project Manager, Deutsche Welle TV, Germany; Dr Nabil Khatib, Executive Editor, Alarabiya News Channel, UAE; Natasha Elkington, AlertNet Correspondent/Humanitarian Crisis Reporter & Online Editor, Thomson Reuters, London; Russell Grute, Director of Marketing, Pharos, UK; Marcus Metzner, Head of Marketing & Communications, S4M, Germany; William Bird, Director, Media Monitoring Africa, South Africa; Corne Bouman, Managing Director, ProSkope, The Netherlands; Lem van Eupen, Head of Strategy, Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, The Netherlands; Julian Clover, Editorial Director, Broadband TV News, UK; Samuel Attah-Mensah, General Manager, CitiFM, Ghana; Simon Spanswick, CEO, AIB, UK.