Sky News Crowned RTS News Channel of the Year

Sky News has been named named News Channel of the Year for the eighth time in ten years at the Royal Television Society (RTS) Journalism awards.

RTS judges said it was a ‘vintage year for Sky News which exhibited outstanding range and depth.’ They added that Sky News ‘is bold and brave and has shown a new and exciting commitment to foreign coverage. It is still the channel that you turn to for breaking news.’

Accepting the award at last night’s ceremony, John Ryley, Head of Sky News, paid tribute to the competition and the ‘brilliant men and women of Sky who over the past 22 years have made the channel the success it is today.’  

He later added: ‘2010 has been another exceptional year for the Sky News team – from the success of our historic Leaders’ Debate campaign,  to the launch of HD, to our outstanding foreign coverage – we continue to push bold, exciting and innovative story-telling.’

Special Correspondent, Alex Crawford, won Television Journalist of the Year, repeating her triumph in the same category last year. Judges said she ‘showed complete mastery of the reporter’s art – tremendous enterprise, polished writing and great screen presence, together with remarkable personal courage and the ability to work under sustained pressure in dangerous places.’ Alex has now won the prestigious RTS award an unprecedented three times.

Sky News won its third RTS award of the night for its coverage of the student riots in the Home News category. Judges described the ‘outstanding coverage of an unfolding event’ and ‘exceptional rolling news coverage’ as the student march in central London turned to violence at Millbank Tower.

The Judges’ Award was shared between the negotiating teams at Sky News, the BBC and ITV who brought about the historic televised Leaders’ Debates. The judges noted that ‘political and broadcasting history was made in the UK in 2010 with the first ever Prime Ministerial Debates. It was a genuinely historic agreement and in most peoples’ eyes the debates more than lived up to their billing.’

Sky News was short-listed in four further categories including Anna Botting for Presenter of the Year; City Editor, Mark Kleinman, for Specialist Journalist of the Year; West of England Correspondent, Katie Stallard, for Young Journalist of the Year, and Libya: The Stolen Children in the Current Affairs – International category.