3 November 2016
12th annual AIBs reward factual programme makers from across the world
The 12th annual awards for factual television, radio and online productions – known as the AIBs – were awarded at a glittering gala dinner in London on Wednesday 2 November hosted by Mark Barton, anchor on Bloomberg Television. Sponsors of the AIBs 2016 include global satellite communications company Eutelsat and broadcast consultants MediaGuru.
As well as rewarding programme makers, the Association for International Broadcasting presented its Founders Award to Abdul Rahman Ramadhan (right) who for more than 35 years has been an unsung hero of news and documentary-making in Africa. He is “The Sound Man” who, working for Camerapix alongside the late legendary photojournalist Mohamed Amin, captured the sounds of war, famine and genocide across Africa. Abdul was the sound recordist who worked with the BBC’s Michael Buerk, who brought news of the Ethiopian famine into homes around the world. This led to the creation of Band Aid and the global Live Aid pop concert. “We are delighted to have the opportunity to recognise the work of Abdul Rahman Ramadhan,” said Alexey Nikolov, Managing Director of RT and Chairman of the AIB’s Executive Committee. “He has worked tirelessly in the most challenging of situations to bring the sounds that illustrate the news to viewers across the world. He has put his life in danger on many occasions and yet shows no sign of hanging up his headphones. Abdul is a worthy recipient of the important AIB Founders Award.”
Alongside the presentation of the Founders Award, the global panel of judges of this year’s AIBs rewarded programme makers in 14 countries, ranging in size from an Argentinian radio station to major TV networks such as the BBC.
Key themes among the entries were the migrant crisis in Europe and in particular the effects on children. There were also a range of productions covering issues around so-called ISIS, including the radicalisation of youth in western European countries. The judges praised the work of nominees, describing productions variously as “bold”, “engaging”, “compelling” and “comprehensive”.
The Association’s Innovation award was presented to the Private Engineering Office of Qatar for its ground-breaking TV and film archiving project that is preserving Qatar’s audio-visual archives on a scale unmatched anywhere in the world.
“We had the largest crop of entries in the 12-year history of the AIBs,” commented Simon Spanswick, chief executive of the Association for International Broadcasting. “Work from broadcasters and production companies on every continent was considered by our shortlisting team. Then our experts in the international jury evaluated which work was the best of the best. Some of the decisions were immensely close as the programmes we saw and heard in the shortlist were all of the very highest standard.”
With results in 17 categories ranging from news journalism to children’s factual, sport to investigate documentary, the AIBs cover the entire range of factual TV, radio and online production genres. There is an overall winner in each category and there are also special commendations that the judges said represented excellent work.
The list of winners appears below.
The AIBs open for entry again in April 2017.
Winners list
TELEVISION JOURNALISM – sponsored by MediaGuru
Winner – The Children of War – BBC News
Highly commended – Desperate Journey – PBS NewsHour
Highly commended – Paris Terror Attacks – CNN
RADIO JOURNALISM
Winner – Burmese Election Special – BBC Burmese
DOMESTIC CURRENT AFFAIRS
Winner – My Son the Jihadi – True Vision Productions for Channel 4
Highly commended – My Jihad – VRT
Highly commended – Chemsex – Vice
RADIO CURRENT AFFAIRS
Winner – ISIS: Young, British and Radicalised – Snappin’ Turtle Productions for BBC Radio 1
Highly commended – Corruption K: Cristina in the Dock – Radio Mitre
Highly commended – Alvin Hall Goes Back to School – WNYC & Public Radio International
SHORT FEATURE
Winner – On Assignment – Vicky’s Story – ITV News and MediaZones
Highly commended – Right to Fight – The Guardian
Highly commended – Winners – BBC World Service
SPECIALIST
Winner – It Ends with Murder – The Body in the Freezer – Danish Broadcasting
Highly commended – The Sound Man – Africa24 and Camerapix
Highly commended – The Special Needs Hotel – Lambent Productions
RADIO INVESTIGATIVE
Winner – Documentary on One: The Case That Never Was – RTÉ Radio 1
Highly commended – The Unfinished Story of Fighting FGM in Egypt – BBC Arabic
Highly commended File on 4 – Tennis – Game Set and Fix? – BBC/Buzzfeed
ONLINE
Winner – 6×9: A virtual experience of solitary confinement – The Guardian
Highly commended – Back in Touch – On Our Radar in partnership with New Internationalist
Highly commended – China’s Science Revolution – BBC News
SCIENCE
Winner – Iceman Reborn – Nova – WGBH
Highly commended – Secrets of the Brain – TERN International
INNOVATION
Qatar Private Engineering Office for the Old Films Archive Project
FOUNDERS
Abdul Rahman Ramadhan
CHILDREN’S
Winner – Checker Tobi – Bayerischer Rundfunk
Highly commended – Know Zone – The Mediae Company
SPORT
Winner – Formula 1 – Whisper Films and Channel 4
Highly commended – Rugby World Cup Final – ITV Sport
RADIO CREATIVE FEATURE
Winner – The Battle of Britain at 75 – TBI Media with Snappin’ Turtle Productions for BBC Radio 2
Highly commended – Growing Up Without a Dad – BlokMedia
SHORT FORM JOURNALISM
Winner – Brussels Divided: Molenbeek after the Terrorist Attacks – The Guardian
Highly commended – Syria: Witness to an Airstrike – CNN Worldwide
Highly commended – VTM News – Train of Hope – Medialaan
TV INVESTIGATIVE
Winner – ISIS: The British Women Supporters Unveiled – Channel 4
Highly commended – 101 East: Murder in Malaysia – Al Jazeera English
Highly commended – Spotlight – Selling Northern Ireland – BBC Northern Ireland
INTERNATIONAL CURRENT AFFAIRS
Winner – Children on the Frontline: The Escape – Channel 4
Highly commended – Kaos Hatti – Kos Island – TRT
Highly commended – We Love Gaza – RT
RADIO PERSONALITY
Viny Agrawal – MyFM 94.3, Indore, India
TELEVISION PERSONALITY
Hala Gorani – CNN International
4 November 2015
The winners of the 2015 AIBs were announced on the 4th November at a gala dinner at LSO St Luke’s in London. These annual international broadcasting awards are now in their eleventh year and celebrate the best in radio, TV and online – journalism, programmes and talent. The AIBs are judged by an independent and international panel of distinguished media professionals representing broadcasting across the world and they ensure that the awards are judged independently from commercial influence. The chosen winners demonstrate the best in engaging, powerful, moving and innovative reporting and investigation from entries which are submitted by countries in every continent of the world.
Simon Spanswick, AIB CEO said: ”The entries in 2015 demonstrated the continuing dedication of programme makers and journalists to uncover important and challenging stories, to take risks, both personally and professionally and to work expertly to investigate and explain complex subjects. The entries educate, entertain and engage their audience using the latest technologies at their disposal. We have seen important and sometimes harrowing stories brought to light, the power of the voice to captivate as well as exciting and engrossing coverage of sporting events. Once again the judges have had the hard but rewarding search for the best out of a very strong set of entries.”
This year’s awards were hosted by CNN’s Hala Gorani. Hala is based in London and anchors The World Right Now, with Hala Gorani, which airs every weekday evening. As an accomplished international journalist, Hala frequently goes into the field to report on major breaking news stories. Most recently, she’s been covering the refugee crisis in Europe and the Middle East.
The AIBs 2015 | Winners and highly commended finalists are:
TV Journalism
The winner is CNN for its coverage of the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean.
Highly commended
Al Jazeera English for Nepal in Ruins
Euronews for Fighting Boko Haram
Domestic current affairs
The winner is Channel 4 for My Last Summer, a programme that gathered together five terminally ill patients to share their experiences of coping with the last months of their lives and the effect on their families and friends.
Highly commended
Antena 3 for The Thing with Rom-Mania
Verve Productions for Filming My Father: In Life and Death
International Current Affairs
The winner is Al Jazeera Media Network for Al Jazeera Investigates – Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787. This was a disturbing tale of corporate greed as the world’s major aircraft manufacturer put profit ahead of safety.
Highly commended
Mongoose Pictures/Quicksilver Media for Outbreak: The Truth about Ebola
True Vision Productions for Kids in Camps
Domestic investigative
The winner is VRT for The Price of Cheap Food. This documentary looked at the never ending price war between supermarkets to lure consumers in with the cheapest possible food, asking who pays for this cheap food and whether a Pandora’s box has been opened in which food producers – principally farmers – have become the first victims.
Highly commended
BBC Northern Ireland for Spotlight: A Woman Alone with the IRA
Channel 4 for The Paedophile Hunter
International Investigative
The winner is Flying Cloud Productions for Human Harvest, a programme that investigated claims that first emerged from China in 2006 that state-run hospitals were killing prisoners of conscience to sell their organs.
Highly commended
Al Jazeera Media Network for Al Jazeera Investigates – Inside Kenya’s Death Squads
Sky News Arabia for Death Boats
Children’s Factual
The winner is Strix Television (part of the Nice Group) that produced The Museum for SVT. The Museum is a competition show in which knowledge, excitement, history and the present day are woven together in a children’s programme that is just as much fun for adults.
Highly commended
BBC for Being Me – A Newsround Special
deMENSEN for The Blacklist – Getting Married
Science programme
The winner is Channel 4 for Drugs Live: Cannabis on Trial which was a ground-breaking scientific trial looking at the effects on the brain of two different forms of cannabis – ‘skunk’ and ‘hash’.
Highly commended
Flimmer Film for Death – A Series about Life
True Vision Productions for Curing Cancer
Short news report
The winner is VICE News for Russian Roulette, Dispatch Fifty Seven in which Simon Ostrovsky spoke to residents in Eastern Ukraine which are innocently caught up in the middle of a bloody campaign – and who are dying as a result.
Highly commended
CNN for Ebola Battle through Nurse’s Eyes
TVC News for Customised Coffins in Ghana
Short feature
The winner is Blue Chalk Media for Burned Girl. Ragini is one of millions of children who are suffering from severe burn injuries. Blue Chalk Media travelled to India to document Ragini’s story through video and still photographs.
Highly commended
BBC World Service for Hooked
ITN for On Assignment: Heroin on the East Coast
Specialist programme
The winner is by TBI Media with Snappin’ Turtle Productions for D-Day 70 Years On. The BBC brought the UK together in a tour de force production to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings – the programme was broadcast on TV and radio, and screened in cinemas across the country.
Highly commended
LOOKS Film & TV Produktionen & ARTE for 14 – Diaries of the Great War
Kansai Telecasting for Bunraku – Soul of the Art
Online factual
The winner is Bayerischer Rundfunk for Do Not Track which explored how information about you is collected and used as you browse the web.
Highly commended
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for My Ukraine
Radio journalism
The winner is BBC World Service for its Ebola Coverage, one of the biggest stories the international broadcaster covered during 2014.
Radio current affairs
The winner is RTE Radio One for Voices which, over 12 episodes, explored issues like suicide, abortion, addiction, and raised questions about who we are and how we live.
Highly commended
ABC for Indigenous Soldiers Who Hid their Identity to Serve – the Untold Story
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for Tradition of the Blade
Radio investigative documentary
The winner is BBC World Service for The Lost Children of the Holocaust. At the end of the Second World War, the BBC began a series of special radio appeals on behalf of a group of children who had survived the Holocaust but were now stranded in post-war Europe. 70 yearson, Alex Last tries to find out what happened to the children named in the recording.
Radio creative feature
The winner is BFBS for Children of Belsen, a compelling anniversary story that deserved to be told and to reach a wider audience.
Highly commended
RTHK for Bipolar Express
Television personality
The winner is Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international correspondent and anchor of the
network’s award-winning, flagship global affairs programme Amanpour.
Radio personality
The winner is Kathryn Ryan of Radio New Zealand, where she anchors the daily Nine to Noon, a
three-hour live news and current affairs programme which runs each weekday.
AIB Founders Award – Mike Wooldridge
The AIB Founders’ Award is in recognition of Mike Wooldridge’s lifetime work as an outstanding correspondent.
AIB Lifetime Achievement Award – Larry King
The inaugural AIB Lifetime Achievement Award is in recognition of Larry King’s remarkable career on radio and television, and his extraordinary impact on the news industry.
21 October 2015
In its 30th anniversary year, CNN International’s anchor and correspondent Hala Gorani is to host the AIBs – the eleventh international awards for the best factual television, radio and online productions.
Taking place in London on Wednesday 4 November 2015, the AIBs celebrate the work of producers, editors and journalists from around the world. Entries from over 30 countries have been submitted to this year’s AIBs, and the shortlist includes work from major broadcasters, online video companies, and independent producers.
Hala Gorani is based in London and anchors The World Right Now, with Hala Gorani, which airs every weekday evening. As an accomplished international journalist, Hala frequently goes into the field to report on major breaking news stories. Most recently, she’s been covering the refugee crisis in Europe and the Middle East.
“It’s a great honour to be involved with this year’s AIBs,” said Hala Gorani. “The journalism and productions entered are remarkable, telling stories from around the world. I’m looking forward to meeting the people responsible for getting these important stories to viewers and listeners in so many countries.”
Hala, who was born in Seattle and raised in Paris, has worked for Agence France Press, the La Voix du Nord newspaper, Bloomberg Television and France 3. She speaks English, French and Arabic.
“We’re delighted that Hala Gorani has agreed to present this year’s AIBs, helping not only to celebrate these awards but also the 30th anniversary of CNN International,” said Simon Spanswick, chief executive of the Association for International Broadcasting. “As someone who has worked on the frontline of international journalism, Hala knows exactly what’s involved in telling the most challenging and complex stories in the world. She will bring that knowledge and experience to this year’s awards as we celebrate the world’s best journalism and factual programming.”
The AIBs will be presented in London on 4 November 2015 in front of a truly global gathering of journalists, editors, producers and directors representing countries across four continents.
