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´óÏó´«Ã½ Worldwide Channels took home a plethora of gold awards for excellence in on-air promotion and design at last week's Promax|BDA Africa awards.

At the award ceremony in Johannesburg, factual entertainment channel ´óÏó´«Ã½ Knowledge was the focus of attention with the on-air campaign for July's Space Season picking up the coveted Gold Muse award in the category of Best Holiday/Seasonal/Special Event Promo. Created in-house by Senior Producer Danny Maguire, Producer Simon Wain and Designer Peter Jeffs, the visual inspiration for the promo came from the concept archives of NASA where artists were charged with imagining the future of space travel & colonisation.  The result was a boyish and wondrous device to tempt viewers with the prospect of a journey back into space. 

Featuring space-themed programming such as Moonshot -The Flight of Apollo 11, The Space Age: NASA’s Story and Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing this year, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Knowledge’s Space Season delivered some the channel's highest ratings of the year.

Meanwhile in design, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Knowledge scooped Gold for Best On-Air Branding. Mirroring the channel's epic, inspiring and authoritative programming, the design's dominant inverted question mark plays to the viewers' quest for knowledge, with the same element carried through all idents, navigation and the channel logo for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Knowledge’s on-air environment.

The iconic channel logo was also awarded the highest accolade in the category of Best Original Logo Design, and as ´óÏó´«Ã½ Knowledge's unique signature, continues to support the channel's bid to 'Keep asking Questions'. 

Jo Sheppard, Creative Director for EMEA at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Worldwide Channels said, "We're thrilled to be recognised for our work, especially in the face of all the fantastic talent we see in our industry every day. The work around the Space Season was particularly challenging given the widespread interest in NASA and the space race this year, and for our in-house team to have executed a campaign effective and memorable enough to cut through the noise makes me really proud."

Garry Sinclair, VP Creative at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Worldwide Channels added, "It's great to see the African Creative community responding so positively to the work we are producing within our business. These awards showcase the strength, originality and innovation of our whole creative team as we continue to support the brand values of our channels."

´óÏó´«Ã½ Worldwide Channels picked up nine awards at the 2009 Promax|BDA Awards in New York in June, including two silvers for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Knowledge and a gold for ´óÏó´«Ã½ World News America. The Australasia team picked up a further two awards at the 2009 Promax|BDA ANZ Awards in Sydney in September.

NOTES TO EDITORS
The ´óÏó´«Ã½ Knowledge channel showcases the best of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s award-winning factual and non-fiction entertainment programming. The channel provides five key programming strands enabling simple appointment viewing: The World delves and explores new cultures around the world; Science & Technology explores new frontiers, from space to motoring; People explores aspects of the human body and mind; The Past brings historical events, places and people back to life; Business offers invaluable advice to help stay on top of today’s challenging business world.

Harriet Otoo