David Attenborough to Receive Top IBC Honor

David Attenborough will be the recipient of IBC's 2011 International Honor for Excellence -- the highest honor that IBC bestows -- in recognition of his career in television and, in particular, natural history.

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The award -- whose past recipients include James Cameron and Jeffrey Katzenberg -- will be presented Sept. 11 at the International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam.

Attenborough's career spans almost 60 years, and his recent Atlantic Productions documentary Flying Monsters 3D With Sir David Attenborough is among the most acclaimed programs to have been commissioned by Sky 3D.

Attenborough joined the BBC in 1952 and immediately found his vocation in natural history programming. He made his name in front of the camera, as well as producing, with Zoo Quest expeditions, in which he and a small crew set off with a 16mm camera to a remote corner of the globe, intending to return with a rare animal for London Zoo and sufficient footage to create a television series.

In the mid-'60s, he temporarily pulled back from making programs when he was appointed the controller of the newly launched channel BBC2. Among the programs he commissioned was Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

He then returned to natural history through credits including the 1979 series Life on Earth.

"Sir David Attenborough has been called the 'greatest broadcaster of our time,' and throughout his career he has seized upon the latest developments in technology to illuminate natural history,"  said Peter Owen, chairman of the IBC Council. "Working with the BBC Natural History Unit he pioneered time-lapse sequences in The Private Life of Plants and low-light and infrared cameras to capture the behavior of nocturnal mammals. Today he is working with Atlantic Productions on stunning 3D programs, including Flying Monsters, the first 3D program to win a BAFTA Award."