Italy and Russia performed particularly well at this year’s Eutelsat TV Awards in Venice, with each winning two prizes in thematic channel categories.
In the case of Italy, Real Time and Sky TG24 secured top spot in Lifestyle and News/Information respectively, while Russia’s Premiera and Top Secret were voted the best Cinema and Culture/Documentary channels respectively.
Others winners were Teletoon+ (Poland, Children’s), MBC 1 HD (Arab Emirates, Fiction/General Entertainment), C Music TV (UK, Music) and Eurosport (France, Sport).
There was also a special mention for Afghanistan’s Pasto TV in the Culture/Documentaries category, and additional prizes were awarded to Shakespeare from Kabul (BBC Persian, UK, Best Programme), TRT Haber (Turkey, People’s Choice) and Spiegel TV Wissen (Germany, Best New Channel).
Furthermore, there were special awards for Italy’s Sky Sport Group for its coverage of the London Olympics, and the Madagascan national broadcaster TVM. Commenting on the awards, Michel de Rosen, Eutelsat’s CEO, said: “creative programming, engagement with viewers and a feel for new trends are core to great TV.” Over 120 channels from 19 countries participated at this year’s competition.
Broadband TV News, which attended the awards, notes that Eutelsat was praised by the winners of the Best Programming category for the stance it has taken against the jamming of satellite signals.
Other interesting observations included the difficulties under which the Russian channel Top Secret works and the turnaround seen at the Turkish public broadcaster TRT, which now operates 15 channels.