CANNES – Banff World Television Festival 2007 announced this week at MIPCOM a new category for the festival’s flagship program competition, the Banff World Television Awards.
The new category, Best Telenovela/Drama Serial Program will be handed out at the 28th annual festival, set for June 10-13, 2007.
In addition to the new award, Banff’s 2007 program competition will include several expanded categories for its interactive program. Best mobile program enhancement award, best internet program enhancement award and best internet only production award will be added to the already 101 programs nominated across 18 categories.
“The new addition to the awards will allow us to continue to honour the very best in Television” said CHUM Limited’s Mary Powers, chair of the Banff Television Festival Foundation.
To judge the illustrious competition, Jury Hosts for BANFF 2007 will now be recruited from both across Canada and around the world.
Breaking with past traditions, selection juries in a number of regions will screen categories, vote online and then meet for final deliberations, enhancing the overall selection process and broadening its scope, says the press release.
The call for entries begins November 15, 2006 and the deadline for entries is February 10, 2007.
“The expanded categories help solidify the notion that Banff is the world’s most important market specially dedicated to entertainment content whether it is television or new media platforms,” added festival CEO Robert Montgomery.
Banff organizers also announced this week that over $720 million in deals were secured or facilitated at the 2006 Festival, five times as much as in 2005.
The huge number includes several large individual deals. “The primary lead I received at Banff involved potential financing in excess of $50 million for various feature film and movie of the week productions.” said David J. Alexander, senior vice president, sports & entertainment group at GE Commercial Financial Services, in the press release.
The figure was arrived at after Banff’s annual delegate survey, which was completed by nearly 400 of them. 69% of respondents indicated that the goal of either completing a business deal or initiating discussions that might lead to a future business deal was of primary importance. In total $43,247,823 in deals were signed at the festival, with another $676,892,924 in deals facilitated or initiated at Banff, said the organization.
