TV Forum News Awards 2018

Fun fact: Keahi was here in Baltimore and was known as Noel Tucker.


Best News Channel (Domestic) - MSNBC (yes, I am a liberal)
Best News Programme - three way tie - The 11th Hour with Brian Williams (excellent analysis), The Rachel Maddow Show (excellent interviews and explainers), both of Stephanie Ruhles hours (tough interviewer but fun)
Best Regional News Programme - WBAL TV News (really any newscast)
Best Breaking News Coverage - local WBAL, national NBC News/MSNBC (their reporters have so many contacts)
Best Brexit Coverage - BBC World News’ The Briefing
Best International News Channel - BBC World News

Best News Presenter (Domestic) - (three way tie that goes along with the 3 favorite shows) Brian Williams, Rachel Maddow, Stephanie Ruhle
Best News Presenter (International) - Ben Bland (so versatile in every manner)
Best News Presenter (Regional) - all here in Baltimore are very good.
Best News Presenter (Newcomer) - haven’t noticed any new ones here in Baltimore, the news channels I watch or the hours on BBC World News.
Best News Presenter Overall - Brian Williams (he’s an excellent jack of all trades - from when he was anchor at Nightly News, to his breaking news coverage, his analysis on The 11th Hour and his specialty coverage such as election night and recently the funeral of President George H.W. Bush)
Best Weather Presenter - no opinion as long as they give a good short range and decent long range (7-10 days).
Best Business Presenter - Ben Bland

Hard as Nails - Stephanie Ruhle (doesn’t let anyone get past her and has an excellent BS detector)
Most missed but not necessarily deceased - Meredith Vierra
Biggest disappointment in 2018 - none really but maybe Comcast not fighting for the Fox assets being sold (simply because I worry about some movies or shows being Disney-fied / sanitized or every Fox show taking a trip to a Disney property like the ABC shows did when Disney bought ABC)
Best News Music - NBC News
Best News Graphics - the NBC election package
Most improved in 2018 - WJZ’s set and on air design
TV Forumer of the Year - noggin (for technical explanations)
Overall Top of the Pops - NBC News Group (NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Telemundo)

My predicitions for 2019:

- Sky News and Sky overall adopt the NBC The More You Know PSA campaign and integrate Sky Ocean Rescue and it’s programmes to Green is Universal
- A shake up at Today Show (from a well placed source)

You are Scrooge and I claim my £5.

Agreed 100%. I do think that news presentation in this country has become hopelessly conservative. When you compare our news programmes/channels to those on the continent and further afield, the difference is really stark, IMO. Certainly, when even Germany has more innovative newscasts than ours, I think we have something of a problem on our hands.

Furthering that last point, take New Zealand, a country of just under five million people. After years of being in a presentational rut, TVNZ has finally managed to produce a news set that is streets ahead of anything currently seen on UK screens:









You can see that the set is very versatile, with the ability to move various different desks on and off set as needed. There is also heavy use of augmented reality (especially in the first clip), which I think works really well (though I realise some here may consider it a bit excessive). In any case, it's something different, which I think is badly needed here. As you say, TV news in this country has all become much of a muchness.

Anyway, sorry for hijacking the News Awards thread! Perhaps this could go in its own thread? I certainly think that there could be some interesting discussion to be had.