Programmes win two World TV Awards, others shortlisted. Ad campaign wins top European Award.
TnaG, Irelands third national TV station, has won two awards for commissioned programmes at the Worldfest Houston 1999 Awards, one of the world's top TV festivals. The programmes, both documentaries, won a Silver and a Bronze while two other programmes were shortlisted for awards.
Winner of the Silver Award was Plearaca Phadraig, a celebration of Celtic music played to an audience of 9,000 people at Le Zenith in Paris and broadcast live on TnaG on St. Patrick's Day 1998. Produced for TnaG by Hummingbird Productions the programme has also already been shown on BBC and SC4.
The Bronze Award winner was a programme called Michael Hartnett - Muince Dreoilin produced by Power Pictures for TnaG. The programme profiles one of Irelands most prolific living poets who is best known for his 1975 anthology "A Farewell to English".
Of the two shortlisted programmes one was An Bealach o Dheas (produced by Crossing the Line), a travel/adventure programme in which presenter Dermot Somers talks as he walks from Malin to Mizen Head. The other shortlisted programme was Rotha Mor an tSaoil (produced by Faction Films), a profile of Mici Mac Gabhann, whose book chronicling life during the Klondike gold rush has become a classic both in Irish and English.
Scealta o Theach na mBocht (Tales from the Poorhouse), a TnaG/RTE co-production, has won a Banff nomination at the Banff International TV Festival.
This year over 1,000 programmes were submitted for nomination. This is the second time in TnaG's three-year history that one of its programmes has won a Banff nomination. To complete the suite of awards TnaG's corporate Advertising Campaign "Because we're different" has won the Silver Award for the best Press and Public Relations Campaign European Award at the Promax and BDA awards in Prague.
Background on TnaG - the 3rd National TV station: Distinctly Irish TV service watched by 500,000 people daily. Broadcasting 9 hours a day, 5 hours as Gaeilge. Own National and Local News, live Dail coverage. Award winning contemporary Irish language programmes. Full Irish language schedule for young people. Supports 50% of independent TV production sector jobs. Policy of inclusion - majority of programmes subtitled in English.
