RNZ’s Kim Hill wins Radio Personality award at AIBs

The Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) has announced the winners of its annual global media excellence awards at a gala event in London this week. ABC Radio was recognised with commendations and Radio New Zealand International’s Kim Hill won Radio Personality of the Year.

The AIB Awards are unique in broadcasting because of their independence from commercial interests. An independent and international panel of judges from the broadcasting and wider media industries selected the winners from entries submitted from all over the world.

Categories covered by the AIBs include separate awards for radio and television, transmedia productions, as well as awards for innovation in technology. This year sees a special category for the best coverage of London 2012 and the introduction of an award for short documentaries.

AIB CEO Simon Spanswick said the range of entries in this year’s AIBs was outstanding. “Our judges had a tremendously challenging time in evaluating and selecting the winners. We’ve seen broadcasters investigating hugely important issues both at home and abroad, excellent and courageous journalism, as well as superb coverage of sporting events, all demonstrating high production values. Overall, we’ve seen the best and worst of life portrayed in pictures and sound.”

Hosted by Evgenia Altfeld, from RTG TV Russia, the event this week was attended by senior executives, producers and journalists from media organisations around the world.

Radio category winners and highly commended finalists

Clearest live news coverage – radio aibawards_500

Winner

BBC World Service for ‘Sudan Independence’
 —“impressively told – offered insights into the birth of a country from the perspectives of children to officials”—

Highly commended

MBN Afia Darfur for ‘Kabkabiya Violence’
 —“the importance of this story is immense – it took courage and understanding to produce”—
BBC Burmese for ‘Coverage of the 2012 Burmese By-Elections'”
 —“offered a glimpse inside Burma at a time of rapid and unprecedented change”—

Best radio creative feature 

Winner

BBC World Service for ‘Knitting in Tripoli’
 —“intimate and extremely original story-telling layered with solid journalism; creatively provides human context to a tragic international event”—

Highly commended

Société Radio-Canada for ‘Tales of Objects – The Bra’
 —“lively, amusing concept, funny and quirky”—

Best radio investigative documentary 

Winner

RTE for ‘Maurice – a Final Journey’
 —“so hard hitting that it became difficult to listen – but you had to – you were gripped; superb editing and brave narration by the protagonists”—

Highly commended

BFBS Radio for ‘Yuddha Ka Sarathi’
 —“true war stories, engagingly told”—

ABC Radio for ‘Intellectually Disabled Fight for Justice’
 —“makes a powerful case so that the issue could be addressed on a national level for the first time”—

Czech Radio for ‘Britons at Czechoslovakian Radio’
 —“beautifully crafted with great use of archive material”—
 

Best radio current affairs documentary

Winner

BBC Arabic for ‘The Women of Tahrir Square’
 —“powerful first person account of issues underlying the Egyptian struggle”—

Highly commended

Radio New Zealand for ‘Broken River’
 —“highly engaging, with excellent production values – the bicycle is a great device”—

RFE/RL for ‘Solitary Confinement
 —“high levels of creativity and variety in the resources used”—
 

Radio personality

Winner
Kim Hill, Radio New Zealand
 —“an experienced and warm broadcaster exercising full control of her content whilst coaxing her guests to reveal more of themselves; really enjoyable live and sparky content that demonstrates what is great about radio and illustrates how important lightness of touch is in speech content”—

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The judges for the AIBs have a range of experience in different aspects of broadcasting and are drawn from all over the world. Australian and New Zealand judges included: radioinfo’s Steve Ahern, CEO IMBA,  Linden Clark, Manager Radio New Zealand International and Mike McCluskey, CEO ABC Radio Australia.

 

A full list oif winners in all media categories is available at www.aib.org.uk