PROMAX agrees: TCM knows how to promote

Turner Classic Movies beat out the big guys -- NBC and Fox -- to win 25
Promax awards at the Promax&BDA gala awards ceremony in Los Angeles Thursday
night.

TCM won in such categories as cable and broadcast network branding and image
campaign, special event program promotion, and funniest promo.

NBC's The Agency, headed by John Miller and Vince Manzi, took home 22 Promax
awards, among them awards for broadcast network reality program promotion,
sports program promotion and special event program promotion.

Fox Sports walked off with eight Promax awards for broadcast network
directing and funniest promo for cable channels and networks, and BBC will bring
six Promax awards back with it to the UK for broadcast networks promotional
animation campaign, editing and reality program promotion.

Big individual winners were Micki Byrnes, director of marketing and promotion
at Gannett's WKYC-TV Cleveland, who won the Promax Pinnacle Award; and Rick
Sirvaitis, president and COO of GM Mediaworks, who received the Promax
Chairman's Award.

Eric Martel of Queben's WRAK.TV was given Promax's Aerodrome Rocket Award,
which recognizes rookie producers, marketers or designers for creating
outstanding work.

Martel won for his launch campaigns for WRAK.TV and sci-fi cable station Z,
and for his development of a new image for cable channel Canal D.

The 2003 Quantel Artist of the Year Award for North America went to Michel
Mercier and Alain Provost of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., for their work
promoting CBS's coverage of the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Provost was the North American Regional winner last year as well, and went on
to win Quantel's overall artist of the year award.

Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.