NHK World named ‘Broadcaster of the Year’

Wednesday 14 Sep 2011
NHK World TV, an English-language international service of NHK-Japan, was named the Broadcaster of the Year during the inaugural ConnectedWorld.TV Awards.

NHK was recognised for its round- the-clock live streaming of the 11 March earthquake that claimed over 19,000 lives.

In the ceremony held in Amsterdam, judge Michael McEwen said: “in serving the global audience, NHK employed all the traditional broadcast elements of good journalism and excellent technology on a new media platform via the Internet to serve an incredible thirst for information.”

For its high-resolution coverage of the disaster, NHK World TV used the latest technology to respond to the increasing demands as traffic surged on its website. By the time it ended the special programming of the disasters on 25 March, it had about 5.4 million visitors.

Tetsushi Wakita, the head of NHK World TV, said “NHK will strive to further develop our international TV broadcast service, making most of the inherent power of the Internet combined with our cutting-edge technology to deliver information to vast audiences.”

The ConnectedWorld.TV Awards is inaugurated this year in association with IBC, an annual tradeshow of broadcasting media and entertainment. The Broadcaster of the Year Award is given to the broadcaster in recognition to its contribution to the advancement of “content everywhere”.

NHK World TV is a 24-hour service which can be seen in about 120 countries and regions worldwide.