AIB Annual Review 2020 published

AIB announces winners of The AIBs international broadcasting awards

4 November 2015

The winners of the 2015 AIBs were announced on the 4th November  at a gala dinner at LSO St Luke’s in London. These annual international broadcasting awards are now in their eleventh year and celebrate the best in radio, TV and online – journalism, programmes and talent. The AIBs are judged by an independent and international panel of distinguished media professionals representing broadcasting across the world and they ensure that the awards are judged independently from commercial influence. The chosen winners demonstrate the best in engaging, powerful, moving and innovative reporting and investigation from entries which are submitted by countries in every continent of the world.

Simon Spanswick, AIB CEO said: ”The entries in 2015 demonstrated the continuing dedication of programme makers and journalists to uncover important and challenging stories, to take risks, both personally and professionally and to work expertly to investigate and explain complex subjects. The entries educate, entertain and engage their audience using the latest technologies at their disposal. We have seen important and sometimes harrowing stories brought to light, the power of the voice to captivate as well as exciting and engrossing coverage of sporting events. Once again the judges have had the hard but rewarding search for the best out of a very strong set of entries.”

This year’s awards were hosted by CNN’s Hala Gorani. Hala is based in London and anchors The World Right Now, with Hala Gorani, which airs every weekday evening. As an accomplished international journalist, Hala frequently goes into the field to report on major breaking news stories. Most recently, she’s been covering the refugee crisis in Europe and the Middle East.

The AIBs 2015 | Winners and highly commended finalists are:

TV Journalism

The winner is CNN for its coverage of the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean.

Highly commended

Al Jazeera English for Nepal in Ruins

Euronews for Fighting Boko Haram

Domestic current affairs

The winner is Channel 4 for My Last Summer, a programme that gathered together five terminally ill patients to share their experiences of coping with the last months of their lives and the effect on their families and friends.

Highly commended

Antena 3 for The Thing with Rom-Mania

Verve Productions for Filming My Father: In Life and Death

International Current Affairs

The winner is Al Jazeera Media Network for Al Jazeera Investigates – Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787. This was a disturbing tale of corporate greed as the world’s major aircraft manufacturer put profit ahead of safety.

Highly commended

Mongoose Pictures/Quicksilver Media for Outbreak: The Truth about Ebola

True Vision Productions for Kids in Camps

Domestic investigative

The winner is VRT for The Price of Cheap Food. This documentary looked at the never ending price war between supermarkets to lure consumers in with the cheapest possible food, asking who pays for this cheap food and whether a Pandora’s box has been opened in which food producers – principally farmers – have become the first victims.

Highly commended

BBC Northern Ireland for Spotlight: A Woman Alone with the IRA

Channel 4 for The Paedophile Hunter

International Investigative

The winner is Flying Cloud Productions for Human Harvest, a programme that investigated claims that first emerged from China in 2006 that state-run hospitals were killing prisoners of conscience to sell their organs.

Highly commended

Al Jazeera Media Network for Al Jazeera Investigates – Inside Kenya’s Death Squads

Sky News Arabia for Death Boats

Children’s Factual

The winner is Strix Television (part of the Nice Group) that produced The Museum for SVT. The Museum is a competition show in which knowledge, excitement, history and the present day are woven together in a children’s programme that is just as much fun for adults.

Highly commended

BBC for Being Me – A Newsround Special

deMENSEN for The Blacklist – Getting Married

Science programme

The winner is Channel 4 for Drugs Live: Cannabis on Trial which was a ground-breaking scientific trial looking at the effects on the brain of two different forms of cannabis – ‘skunk’ and ‘hash’.

Highly commended

Flimmer Film for Death – A Series about Life

True Vision Productions for Curing Cancer

Short news report

The winner is VICE News for Russian Roulette, Dispatch Fifty Seven in which Simon Ostrovsky spoke to residents in Eastern Ukraine which are innocently caught up in the middle of a bloody campaign – and who are dying as a result.

Highly commended

CNN for Ebola Battle through Nurse’s Eyes

TVC News for Customised Coffins in Ghana

Short feature

The winner is Blue Chalk Media for Burned Girl. Ragini is one of millions of children who are suffering from severe burn injuries. Blue Chalk Media travelled to India to document Ragini’s story through video and still photographs.

Highly commended

BBC World Service for Hooked

ITN for On Assignment: Heroin on the East Coast

Specialist programme

The winner is by TBI Media with Snappin’ Turtle Productions for D-Day 70 Years On. The BBC brought the UK together in a tour de force production to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings – the programme was broadcast on TV and radio, and screened in cinemas across the country.

Highly commended

LOOKS Film & TV Produktionen & ARTE for 14 – Diaries of the Great War

Kansai Telecasting for Bunraku – Soul of the Art

Online factual

The winner is Bayerischer Rundfunk for Do Not Track which explored how information about you is collected and used as you browse the web.

Highly commended

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for My Ukraine

Radio journalism

The winner is BBC World Service for its Ebola Coverage, one of the biggest stories the international broadcaster covered during 2014.

Radio current affairs

The winner is RTE Radio One for Voices which, over 12 episodes, explored issues like suicide, abortion, addiction, and raised questions about who we are and how we live.

Highly commended

ABC for Indigenous Soldiers Who Hid their Identity to Serve – the Untold Story

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for Tradition of the Blade

Radio investigative documentary

The winner is BBC World Service for The Lost Children of the Holocaust. At the end of the Second World War, the BBC began a series of special radio appeals on behalf of a group of children who had survived the Holocaust but were now stranded in post-war Europe. 70 yearson, Alex Last tries to find out what happened to the children named in the recording.

Radio creative feature

The winner is BFBS for Children of Belsen, a compelling anniversary story that deserved to be told and to reach a wider audience.

Highly commended

RTHK for Bipolar Express

Television personality

The winner is Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international correspondent and anchor of the

network’s award-winning, flagship global affairs programme Amanpour.

Radio personality

The winner is Kathryn Ryan  of Radio New Zealand, where she anchors the daily Nine to Noon, a

three-hour live news and current affairs programme which runs each weekday.

AIB Founders Award – Mike Wooldridge

The AIB Founders’ Award is in recognition of Mike Wooldridge’s lifetime work as an outstanding correspondent.

AIB Lifetime Achievement Award – Larry King

The inaugural AIB Lifetime Achievement Award is in recognition of Larry King’s remarkable career on radio and television, and his extraordinary impact on the news industry.