Annual Reports

1998-1999

Corporate Overview | Programming | Financial Report | Appendices

National and International Awards

Again this year, CBC programs, journalists and creative personnel received numerous awards. For example:

English Television swept the honours once again with 38 Gemini Awards for its productions and coproductions. News, Current Affairs and Newsworld dominated the news and information categories, receiving prizes for The National, Undercurrents, the fifth estate and On The Road Again. In drama programs, The Sleep Room, Pit Pony, Nights Below Station Street and Major Crime were awarded prizes, as were This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The New Red Green Show and Twitch City in the comedy category. CBC Sports also won its share of Gemini Awards for its coverage of the Winter Olympics in Nagano. English Television received six prizes given at the Canadian Independent Film Caucus - National Documentary Film Awards ("Hot Docs"). In addition, in November 1998, the entire cast of The Royal Canadian Air Farce won the prestigious Governor General's Performing Arts Award. At the AMPIA Awards - Rosies, from the Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association, North of 60 alone earned six prizes, including those given for best series, best script and best program in the festival. At the Atlantic Journalism Awards, CBC Newfoundland won two prizes, while CBC Charlottetown and CBC Halifax each earned one. In the US, at the Columbus International Film & Video Festival, which takes place annually in Ohio, a record 88 prizes were awarded to English Television productions.

French Television won 47 Gémeaux awards given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, 16 of which went to in-house productions. These included Christiane Charette en direct, La Facture, La Vie d'artiste, 4 et demi..., Découverte and Charles Dutoit et Jeanne d'Arc à Tokyo. Le Téléjournal was awarded a Gémeaux for the best news program, as was état de choc for the best news special. CBC Sports also received two Gémeaux awards for its coverage of the Nagano Olympics. Among the coproductions honoured by the Academy were Omertà II : La Loi du silence, which earned eight Gémeaux, including the people's choice award, Sous le signe du lion, which garnered six, L'Ombre de l'épervier, five, and Un gars, une fille, four. Shot during the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Harmonie, produced by Michel F. Gélinas, received four awards in Japan's 42nd Film and Video Competition - namely the Gold, the Minister of Foreign Affairs prize, the Asahi Evening prize and the Japan Times prize. La Boîte à lunch, for young viewers, was honoured this year with four awards, including the International Youth Award, in Germany, and the Award of Merit (preschool) given by the Alliance for Children and Television.

Both English Radio networks, Radio One and Radio Two, won numerous prizes for their programs. The Radio and Television News Directors Association Awards alone awarded eight prizes to the CBC, including four for programs aired nationally and another four for regional programs (Prairies and British Columbia). Some of the winning programs were Alkali Lake and Graham James Scandal, which each earned two prizes, Robert Latimer Trial, and Via Rail Crash Coverage. Five gold medals, one silver and two bronze were awarded to English Radio at the New York Festival Awards. The gold-medal winners were 706 Union Avenue, How to Breathe the Air of Our Ancestors, The Skid, DNA: The Silent Witness and Songs My Mother Taught Me. The prestigious John Drainie Award was given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to Bernie Lucht, producer of Ideas, for his outstanding contribution to broadcasting.

French Radio garnered some prestigious awards this year, such as the Grand prix du journalisme given by the Communauté des radios publiques de langue française for Rio Maria : comme dans une tranchée, by Pierre Trottier, Lucie Benoît and Pierre Duchesne, a story aired on Dimanche magazine. Two prizes from the Office des communications sociales (OCS) were given to French Radio, the first for 275-Allô/275-Ados, aimed at teenagers and produced by the Première Chaîne, and the second for Open House, a radio play produced by the Chaîne culturelle and aired on Radio-Canada Gaspésie-Les Îles. The Grand Prix de la Radio de l'Université radiophonique et télévisuelle internationale (URTI) was awarded to À l'ombre du rêve, on the Première Chaîne.

CBC Records won two Juno prizes, one for the best classical album with Songs of Travel and another for the best classical work with Concerto for Wind Orchestra. The Mozart Horn Concerti won the prize for best classical album of the year at the Pacific Music Awards. Late Romantics received the prize for best classical recording of the year at the East Coast Music Awards. The recording of Soirée française won the Prix Gabriel Fauré given by the Académie du disque lyrique, and Virage won a Felix for the best jazz album of the year.

Several prizes received this year by the CBC in the new media field confirmed the relevance and popularity of our Internet sites and the airing of our programs on these sites. On the French networks, the Site Nouvelles de Radio-Canada won the Web d'or in the media category, and the readers' prize from Branchez-vous! at the Marché international des inforoutes et du multimédia (MIM), held in May. The Internet site Info-culture, a Web magazine, won a Boomerang in the Webzine category. Given by Éditions Info-Presse, Boomerang prizes are awarded to the best interactive communications pieces developed in Quebec. The youth site CBC4Kids, on the English networks, won some 20 prizes, including the Teachers Award - Skewl Sites, the PeachPod Cool Site Award and the EduNET Choice Award. Infoculture, the arts and culture magazine on the English Networks' Web site, was selected twice as the site of the week, once by Yahoo and again by Telus Planet.