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´óÏó´«Ã½ News had a successful evening at this year's RTS Journalism awards (26 February) with nine awards, including Scoop of the Year for coverage on the HBOS/Lloyds TSB merger on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ News Channel – which was also named news channel of the year.

´óÏó´«Ã½ News also won best News Coverage – Home, for reporting of the banking crisis – and News Programme of the Year for ´óÏó´«Ã½ News At Ten.

´óÏó´«Ã½ Director of News Helen Boaden said: "We're delighted that the RTS has recognised the quality and excellence of ´óÏó´«Ã½ News journalism in this way. It is a testimony to the hard work and dedication of our journalists to be nominated for so many awards."

Robert Peston, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ News business editor, picked up two awards for Television Journalist of the Year and Specialist Journalist of the Year.

The judges said: "The winning correspondent produced probably the most sustained run of scoops and exclusives in the history of broadcast news in the UK... It would not be an exaggeration to say that a large part of the nation hung on the winner's words every night – he personally revived appointment-to-view."

Panorama won the Current Affairs Home Award with Primark: On The Rack, which revealed the use of child labour in India to supply clothes to the UK. The judges said the programme laid bare "the whole chain from refugee camp to the High Street rail."

There was a clean sweep of the nominations in this category with John Ware's ground-breaking Omagh: What The Police Were Never Told, which uncovered secret intelligence which could have helped charge some terrorists but was witheld from detectives – and Peter Taylor's scoop, The Secret Peacemaker, about the life of Brendan Duddy and his role as 'The Link' between the IRA and the British Government.

This World's Britain's Most Wanted about the murder of Alexander Litvinenko was also shortlisted in the Current Affairs International category.

The Innovative News prize was awarded to ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two's Newsnight for 10 Days To War, which featured Kenneth Branagh, Toby Jones, Juliet Stevenson, Art Malik and Stephen Rea in a series of gripping short dramas about the countdown to war in Iraq.

The Nations and Regions Current Affairs award went to ´óÏó´«Ã½ Yorkshire for The Story Of Michael Barnett by Inside Out which reported the death of a man trapped in a drain in a suburban street in Hull during the floods of 2007.

PR