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Oscar-winning film director James Cameron, IT visionary Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, France Télévisions, the BBC and NHK were among the winners at the inaugural ConnectedWorld.TV Awards.

In association with the IBC Connected World, theConnectedWorld.TV Awards celebrate the creativity of broadcasters, independent producers, technology companies and consumer electronics manufacturers pioneering the business of ‘content everywhere’.  The Awards showcased many of the exciting developments arising from the growing use of broadband internet – both fixed and mobile - as an alternative distribution channel for TV and video content.

More than 150 entries were received from organisations in 28 countries across Europe, Asia Pacific and the Americas. An international panel of judges selected finalists in 15 Award categories.  A further three categories were based on nominations from readers of ConnectedWorld.TV and decided by online polls.

The Awards ceremony at the Hotel Okura Amsterdam was presented by Spencer Kelly, presenter of the BBC’s flagship international technology programme, Click, and proceedings kicked off with the director of Avatar and Titanic being awarded, along with partner Vince Pace for an Outstanding Contribution to the Industry as highlighted by the co-chairmen’s CAMERON | PACE Group.

NHK World was named ConnectedWorld.TV Broadcaster of the Year for its courageous and creative online coverage of the East Japan tsunami and its aftermath. NHK WORLD saw off challenges from a shortlist of nominees that included the UK’s BBC World News, CJ Hellovision of Korea, TV5Monde from France and Czech TV. Its 3-Screens Policy and a commitment to offering its NHK WORLD English language news service "anytime, anywhere, on any device” to viewers worldwide via the internet helped secure the inaugural ConnectedWorld.TV Broadcaster of the Year Award for Japan’s public service broadcaster.

Announcing the Award, Michael McEwan, Chairman of Media Asset Capital, Chair of the Global Broadcast Summit and a ConnectedWorld.TV Awards judge said, “The NHK and BBC often lead their colleagues in both innovation and service quality and while there is little to separate these two great public broadcasters there is no question that NHK's worldwide distribution of earthquake information that was consistently of quality and humanity gives it the edge for this year's award.”

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg was named ConnectedWorld.TV Personality of the Year.This award was conceived to recognise an individual who has made the most significant or unexpected impact on the connected content scene during the past year. Readers of ConnectedWorld.TV were invited to submit nominations. These could be either a vocal evangelist for the concept of 'Content Everywhere', a thought leader from the broadcast, digital media or telecommunications industries, or even an independent content creator whose work has gone viral.

From a shortlist of six, readers of ConnectedWorld.TV voted that the award should go to Mark Zuckerberg CEO, President and co-founder, Facebook. Arno Lubrun, General Manager of Facebook Benelux collected the Award on behalf of Zuckerberg from Mike Crimp, CEO of IBC.
 
 
Winners of the other ConnectedWorld.TV categories were:
Content Awards
Entertainment, Sport & Local News Content Award
France Télévisions with IBM and WizTiVi
 
France Télévisions and IBM, collaborating with WizTiVi, launched France’s first HbbTV-based interactive sports broadcast, on two French Digital Terrestrial TV channels, for the prestigious Roland Garros Tennis Tournament in May 2011. A combination of live broadcast TV and internet feeds showing simultaneously on the HbbTV-capable TV screen, enabled sports fans to experience a brand new and compelling way of viewing their favourite programmes.
B2B & Advertising Content Award
GSM Association
The GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is the world’s largest annual mobile industry event. Mobile World Live TV produces four full days of event content including six hours of live-to-air television, panel discussions, interviews, news and select keynote sessions which are broadcast to onsite locations and 12,000 rooms in 100 hotels across Catalonia and streamed to the web and mobile apps.
Content Discovery Awards
Connected TV Application Award
BBC NEWS
The BBC News application for connected TVs is the first BBC television service that will be available to audiences across the globe. It brings together video and text - two strengths of BBC News - in a new and immersive experience for a TV device.
Portable Device Application Award
CJ HELLOVISION
The tving mobile applications deliver 110 live TV channels and 30,000 films and broadcast VOD episodes to mobile devices. A my channel function empowers users to confine their viewing to their favourite sources. As part of an n-screen service, the apps allow users to switch their viewing to a PC, another smartphone or tablet device.
Search & Content Discovery Award
Jinni
Claimed to be the first “taste-and-mood” based video discovery engine, Jinni delivers an intuitive, personalized experience that increases content consumption and reduces churn.  The service is powered by the Entertainment Genome which contains thousands of ‘genes’ that are assigned to each title to describe mood, style, plot, setting and more.
Connected Consumer Awards
Home Networking Award
AirTies– Air 4420 wireless video streaming media server
The Air 4420 is a self-provisioning wireless video streaming media server that connects any IP Gateway and any network-enabled TV, Blu-ray Player, games console, IPTV or Hybrid Sat/Cable/DTT STB to wirelessly connect them to the Internet and home network.
Consumer Experience Award
3view
3view is a next generation hybrid set top box combining Dual DVB t2 HD Tuners, Opera browser, ABR live streaming, open internet access by means of keyboard and mouse. The STB also includes a 500GB PVR with TIVO-like functionality and support for HD BBC iPlayer and Zwave Wireless.
Connected TV and Connected Portable Device Awards
The finalists for the Connected TV and Connected Portable Device of the Year were nominated by readers of ConnectedWorld.TV during late July 2011.  The winners were decided by readers' polls conducted during August.
The polls determined that the Dune HD TV 101 won Connected TV of the Year while the Connected Portable Device Award went to the Apple iPad 2.
Monetisation Awards
Revenue Generation Award
justAd.TV
JustAd.TVtackles the challenge created by the fragmented advertising environment across the connected world due to the variety of video technology and browser choices made by CE manufacturers. JustAd.TV offers an innovative cross-platform ad format that delivers effective advertising with minimal effort.
Service Delivery Platform Award
thePlatform
Built on top of service-oriented architecture, mpx features smart publishing profiles that enable more efficient content management, advanced personalization, and automated publishing of large video libraries across the Web and IP-connected devices. mpx supports various advertising, pay-per-view and TV everywhere business models.
Content Security Award
Irdeto
Irdeto ActiveCloak for Media allows satellite, cable, terrestrial, telco and OTT operators to securely deliver high-value/high-quality video content to a wide variety of different devices both via Internet or through a home network.  The solution complies with studio licensing requirements to ensure a long-term return on content investments.
 
Technology Awards
Production Tool Award
Grass Valley
Grass Valley MediaFUSE system plugs in to an existing production platform to give journalists, editors and operators easy to use tools to re-package content, with its metadata, for rapid multi-platform delivery.  The system is designed to make broadcasters’ news content available on other platforms at very little additional cost.
Building Block Award
Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA)
The Digital Living Network Alliance – DLNA – enables the sharing of content across the fully connected home network by means of industry-defined technical guidelines based on proven standards, compelling customer benefits, a solid Certification program and an extensive ecosystem of devices from numerous manufacturers.
Content Delivery Technology Award
Siemens Communications, Media and Technology
By utilizing web-based technologies and ultra-high compression, the Siemens OTT TV Suite provides an IPTV experience ‘over the top’. It benefits broadcasters and content owners - who can leverage their HD content without the need for managing their own networks – and telecom operators who can leverage their customer bases without large STB investments.
Technology Breakthrough of the Year
EchoStar Europe
EchoStar’s revolutionary SlingLoaded™ HDS-600RS is a Freesat+ high definition, digital video recorder that enables consumers to watch their TV anywhere. The product combines 150+ channels with the ability to pause, rewind and record live TV and access connected TV apps including ‘TV anywhere’ from Sling Media.

Additional information, judges comments and images are available at www.connectedworldawards.tv