Japan's NHK World Wins Broadcaster of Year in New Internet TV Awards For Disaster Coverage

TOKYO – NHK World TV won Broadcaster of the Year at the inaugural Internet television ConnectedWorld.TV Awards, for its coverage of the triple Japanese disasters in March.

The international English-language channel of Japan’s public broadcaster ran rolling 24-hour coverage of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis through cable television, and on its website, which attracted 5.4 million visitors in the two weeks from March 11.

“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,” said Michael McEwen, one of the judges, at the ceremony in Amsterdam on Monday evening.

NHK was chosen from a shortlist that included the BBC and TV5 Monde from France.

"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," declared the judges.

 “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,” said Tetsushi Wakita, head of NHK World, as he accepted the award.