GBTV Wins Big at CBU Awards…

Tonight, our Channel Five family is pleased to announce that we have onceagain made Belize proud of our regional accomplishments as a national station.  This year, we won the most awards in television in the Caribbean.  As a member of the Caribbean Broadcasting Union, this station has always strived to maintain its high broadcasting standards and a few days ago at the CBU’s annual general assembly, our efforts proved fruitful.  Of the categories to which we made submissions, our news stories, sports documentary, best public service spot and drama series emerged victorious in five individual classes besting the rest of the Caribbean.  News Five’s Isani Cayetano has won his fifth regional award for excellence in journalism, while reporter Mike Rudon won best story in the Health and Environment category.  Elsewhere during the award ceremony, sportscaster James Adderley topped the submissions for his coverage of the Eighty-fifth Holy Saturday Cross Country Cycling Classic. This station also picked up the top award for Best Public Spot and we were formally acknowledged for the Belize Apprentice Season One in the Best Drama Category.  C.E.O. Amalia Mai was present in Suriname where she received the good news and the awards. News Five’s Isani Cayetano has a report.

Amalia Mai, C.E.O., Channel 5

Amalia Mai

“It’s a huge moment for our station, for Channel Five, Great Belize Productions and of course for Belize because it shows that the hard work, the team work, the high standards that we love to keep at Channel Five paid off in a great way at the Annual General Meeting of the Caribbean Broadcasting Union.”

Isani Cayetano

“We’ve won five of eight categories and to me it seems as if though we almost swept, if we did not sweep the entire, the award process.  Can you speak to us on either the individual achievements or one of those moments in receiving the awards in Suriname?”

Amalia Mai

“It was obviously and actually a huge moment for us.  I think that over the years and I know for sure that we‘ve won many awards over the years, but this year the stories that we submitted that have aired in 2013 were the ones that were judged on and, obviously, being called on the stage so often was overwhelming for us.”

Isani Cayetano

“Talk us about either one of the stories or one of those specific moments.”

Amalia Mai

“Okay.  Actually I was very happy about all the awards.  All the awards mean something, are singular achievements for our station but I thought that the story on Rowan was very big because we have won another award for him when he climbed the Victoria Peak.  The great challenge for him last year was swimming in the Great Blue Hole, so that I thought [meant a lot] and because he is disabled, that I thought it was so touching, it was so human.  And the judges did get out of their way to compliment the young man, his challenges and, of course, you as the reporter.  And I have to big you up because this is your fifth award and your cameraman Chris Mangar has been with you capturing all these moments.  So congrats.  It is not to say, of course, that the other stories are not great.  Winning an award in the submissions made and presented every year is huge.”

Isani Cayetano, CBU Award Recipient

Isani Cayetano

“It’s my fifth award and I recognize it as a landmark achievement but the idea of being able to tell a story, as you mentioned earlier, with regards to going out there and doing your job and being able to come back and show Belize, and by extension the world, the situations and the trials and tribulations of others through our stories, in this case it was Rowan Garel, and the fact that every year this young man finds some new challenge.  Given the fact that he is visually impaired, he finds himself [doing] something that says he will overcome this particular challenge and being able to show Belizeans and being able to show the world that particular story in the way it was written and presented, to me it makes the fifth award all the more sweeter, so to speak.”

Mike Rudon, CBU Award Recipient

“It’s a great feeling to be recognized, to be regionally recognized for the work that we do because we do it as a team.  You know that we are a reporter and a cameraman and we go out as a team and we do an assignment.  It’s a great feeling.”

Isani Cayetano

“In terms of this particular story, being out in San Ignacio and seeing all of the elements come together in terms of presenting a story to the Belizean public unbeknownst to you that it had all the trappings of something that would later earn you an award.  What’s the feeling like in terms of being on the ground and covering that story not knowing that by a long shot it would have been selected or short listed for the award?”

Mike Rudon

Mike Rudon

“Well Isani, I have to admit that when I go out there and I do a story I don’t have an award in mind.  I don’t go thinking, “You know what this can win an award or this topic is one that can win an award.”  For me it’s more important to go out and to tell a story, to tell a good story about an important topic that you can inform the Belizean people, you can educate the Belizean people and at times you entertain the Belizean people and I think that is the important thing.  Now the fact that you have gotten regional recognition is just the icing on the cake as far as I am concerned.”

Amalia Mai

“This year, there were over two hundred submissions and we won and we won big, so I think it’s really, really a great thing for all the people that have worked to win awards.  And it actually puts Channel Five in the regional perspective for not only the core business that we do here which is news, we also won for production, we also won for drama, we also won for public service announcement and of course we won the best documentary which is our coverage of the cross country.  So it shows that we are not only an award-winning station, we are a station that produces so many other things and we have our standards for that.”

Isani Cayetano

“Finally, five awards in one year is a tough act to follow.  Where do we go from here as a newsroom, in terms of either maintaining this standard or trying to improve upon where we are presently?”

Amalia Mai

“I think that winning five awards is tough to follow and while I am so ecstatic about the win, I know that next year the competition gets tougher for us because the whole region wants to win.  Every station wants to win an award so it gets tougher for us.  It means that we have to raise our bar and we have to continue doing what we do at Channel Five, keeping our standards but most importantly reinventing ourselves.  As we go along, we have to change.”

The winning stories will be aired in the days to come.