RTNDA Canada announced tonight that CTV British Columbia is the recipient of the Bert Cannings Award for Best TV Newscast (large market). For the third year in a row, CTV NEWS AT SIX takes the top spot in British Columbia besting their competitors’ newscasts. CTV British Columbia also received honours for Best Long and Best Short Feature, Adrienne Clarkson Award for Diversity, and an Honourable Mention for Continuing Coverage for reporter Shannon Paterson’s work on “The Joshua Peng Story”.
The Saturday night awards presentation took place at The Coast Coal Harbour Hotel, where CTV British Columbia’s News Director Margo Harper was on hand to accept the award.
CTV NEWS AT SIX coverage of the tragic wildfires that set West Kelowna, BC ablaze, resulting in the evacuation of 17, 000 residents last July was the subject of the winning newscast. CTV British Columbia responded to the emergency with heroic efforts, offering the only newscast to tell the story from the air and the ground, to communities in the path of the flames and delivered the winning newscast July 19th 2009 deserving of the title of this year’s RTNDA Canada’s Best Newscast in British Columbia.
“We are extremely proud to be the recipient of three RTNDA Awards especially the award for Best Newscast for the third year running,” said Tom Haberstroh, Vice President and General Manager of CTV British Columbia. “What makes this accomplishment particularly gratifying is that each year we have been recognized for excellence during a major breaking story. Our strength during Breaking News is what our viewers have come to rely on, and can continue to count on in the future. I’d like to thank our entire news staff for their dedication, hard work and commitment to excellence.”
RTNDA awarded the Dave Rogers Award for Best Long Feature (large market) to CTV BC for “Walk On”, a five part series about veteran CTV BC reporter David Kincaid’s knee surgery. Shot by Shelley Moore and edited by Kim Bosnick, “Walk On” gave viewers an unprecedented look at the process from surgery preparation, procedure, and post operation recovery.
Reported and shot by Brent Gilbert and edited by Tim Latham “Secrets of the Deep” was honoured with the Dave Rogers Award for Best Short Feature (large market). With a compelling eyewitness account, Gilbert and Latham were able to piece together through eye witness account of what happened When British ship “P514” was sunk off the coast of Newfoundland in June of 1942 when it was accidentally sunk by the Canadian minesweeper “Georgian.”
CTV British Columbia “First Story” team including Senior Producer Pieter Romer, Producer Shirley Mclean and Editor is Winston Xin took home the Adrienne Clarkson Award for Diversity for their story, “Olympic Resistance”, that took and inside look at what the Olympic Protesters are fighting for. This is the second year in a row that the CTV BC First Story unit has taken home this award for the region.


