With more than 300 delegates from Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain and UAE in attendance, the inaugural Broadcastpro Summit and Awards held at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel on November 23, 2011, recognised 14 outstanding achievements in both creativity in programming and technological innovations. A very conservative estimate showed that more than 200 delegates had attended the […]
With more than 300 delegates from Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain and UAE in attendance, the inaugural Broadcastpro Summit and Awards held at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel on November 23, 2011, recognised 14 outstanding achievements in both creativity in programming and technological innovations.
A very conservative estimate showed that more than 200 delegates had attended the Summit as more than 180 people were already seated at the beginning of the conference and at least 30 to 40 people, if not more, joined us during the course of the day.
The event was held under the auspices of the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU) and the keynote address at the summit and awards ceremony was delivered by Dr. Riyadh Najm, Vice President of ASBU and Deputy Minister for Information Affairs, Ministry of Culture and Information, Saudi Arabia.
At the well-attended summit held earlier in the day, top executives of broadcast companies discussed issues from cloud computing, business intelligence for broadcasters, the future of television and archiving, among other issues. Landmark case-studies were presented in areas of establishing new channels and creating effective archives.
Besides the fact that this summit and awards attracted the largest number of people from the production and broadcast industry this year, we were pleased with the very high-profile turnout we had at our event, stated Vijaya Cherian, Group Editor, Broadcast Division, CPI.
We had a small delegation from the Ministry of Culture and Information in Saudi Arabia as well as key players from Oman and Qatar. Some of our broadcast friends had flown down from the UK and we had a fantastic turnout from the local market as well. As someone pointed out, our panels brought together some of the most well known heavyweights in the industry under one umbrella. Clearly, people wanted advice and they felt that we had brought the right people together for each of the discussions.
The awards ceremony began with the MENA Broadcast Trendsetter category and the winner was Dubai Media Inc. for creating apps to ensure the distribution of content across multiple platforms.
Abu Dhabi Film Commission was recognised as the Best Entity Promoting Local Film Production for its efforts in promoting local talent while Real Image TV Production walked away with top honours for the Best Tech Production of 2011 for a video on Toshiba, which combined live action and stereoscopic 3D.
The Jeddah Radio complex with its path-breaking solutions won the Innovative Project Award.
The Best Director of the Year award went to Ahmad Ibrahem of Ashorooq TV for his special programme on Sudan. Qvest Media and TSL Middle East shared the honours for the MENA Systems Integrator of the Year.
The stereoscopic 3D lab at 2454 Intaj won the MENA Special Recognition Award.
For its very popular coverage of the English Premier League, Abu Dhabi Media was adjudged the winner of the Best Sports Coverage.
Nick Barratt of MBC was acknowledged by industry peers as being the Technical Achiever of the Year.
OSNs Hindistani walked away with a unanimous vote from the jury as being the Best Arabic Drama Production of the Year.
First Gulf Company was accorded special recognition from the jury and awarded the MENA Business Excellence Award.
For their landmark achievements in Libya, Al Aan TV was the Editors choice for the Broadcast Achievement Award.
For his initiatives in creating ICHD, an initiative that will revolutionise the pay TV market, Irshad Contractor, CEO of ICHD was recognised as the MENA Entrepreneur of the Year.
Finally, for his leadership in the regions broadcasting industry, Dr. Riyadh Najm, Deputy Minister of Information Affairs, Saudi MOCI and VP of ASBU was recognised as the Broadcast Visionary of the Year.
We are proud again to point out that this is the only awards ceremony in the region that has, thus far, attracted so many broadcast professionals who live and work in the Arab world. We only had a handful of people from the international market so this was truly a celebration of excellence in the region as we had around 300 people at the awards night,” added Ms. Cherian.
Reactions of winners and post-event details will be available on http://www.broadcastprome.com in the next few days.
