Hyderabad: The 6th UNICEF Awards for Children-Related Programmes in Telugu Television Channels waspresented at a special ceremony in Hyderabad on December 16, 2014. Eleven awards in diverse categories, including the highest “UNICEF Awards for Channel Most Committed to Children” were conferred to Vanitha TV on this occasion. (complete list of award winning programs attached)
Renowned lyricist Mr. Sirivennela Sitaramasastri, was the Guest of Honor at this ceremony and gave away these prestigious awards. Jury Chairperson Mr. P.V.R.K. Prasad, IAS (Retd.), Ruth Leaño, Chief Field UNICEF Office for Andhra Pradesh, Telangana& Karnataka and Ms P N Vasanti, Director General CMS were present at the awards ceremony.Select government officials, heads of TV channels, eminent media personalities, members of the academia and representatives of the civil society organisations attended the event.
The UNICEF Awards, initiated in partnership with Centre for Media Studies (CMS), is now in its 6th year. The purpose of the award is to enhance awareness, knowledge and understanding about children issues amongst Telugu news and entertainment channels and encourage the editorial staff and the producers of the channels to pay greater attention to children-related programme content. The Telugu TV Channels have been an active participant in the UNICEF Awards since its inception and have demonstrated sustained commitment towards issues related to children.
This year, from August 6 to November 14, 2014, CMS recorded, monitored and analyzed over 4,56,000 minutes (7,600 hours) of content churned out by the 19 news channels during prime-time. In these 100 days, the channels together contributed a record number of 2,578 programmes on children-related issues which accounts for 11,386.23 minutes – this is approximately 2.5 percentage of the channel’s prime-time in the 100 days of monitoring of 4,56,000 minutes. The News Stories dominated the entries with 2,175 programmes. The other formats which were covered by the channels were – 111 News Features, 64 Discussions, 40 Documentaries, 2 Fictional Programmes, 42 Public Service Messages and 144 Other Formats. A significant enhancement this year was a total of 76 Self-Nominations with a total duration of 1524.33 minutes.
In this sixth edition of the Awards, there was a substantial increase in the number of programmes and the total time contributed by the participating 19 channels. In all, the percentage of prime airtime dedicated to children in was a significant improvement from the finding of last edition. In terms of quality better programmes and a wider range of issue related to children were covered. Overall it has been found that the quantity and quality of programming on children has improved substantially.
The Telugu TV programmes were evaluated on parameters such as message research and presentation, innovation, quality of visuals, treatment of the subject from legal and rights perspective and overall assessment of the potential impact of the programme on the viewers.
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For further information please contact:
Prosun Sen, Advocacy &Communication Specialist, UNICEF Office for the states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, Tel: 91 40 23227226, 23227236, Mob: 91 9502655533 Email: psen@unicef.org, Website: www.unicef.in
Or
Anita Medasani, Regional Manager, CMS Hyderabad, Tel: 91 40 2354 0493, Mob: 91 88975 07936, Email: anita@cmsindia.org, Website: www.cmsindia.org
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