Chester Sam­bra­no

The Caribbean Broad­cast­ing Union (CBU) says that there have been a record-break­ing four hun­dred and eighty-four (484) sub­mis­sions for the NGC 35th CBU Caribbean Me­dia Awards.

In an­nounc­ing the list of nom­i­nees for this year’s com­pe­ti­tion the CBU said the sub­mis­sions are for six­ty-three (63) cat­e­gories from a to­tal of thir­ty-four (34) or­gan­i­sa­tions rep­re­sent­ing thir­teen (13) coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries in the Dutch, Eng­lish and Span­ish Caribbean.

It al­so said the sup­port from the in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment part­ners, re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions and com­mer­cial en­ti­ties is al­so at an all-time high with eight (8) cat­e­go­ry spon­sors recog­nis­ing the re­turns of part­ner­ing with the CBU.

Among the oth­er record bro­ken this year is vot­ing for the Peo­ple's Choice Award with more than three thou­sand on­line votes al­to­geth­er by the close of vot­ing on June 1, 2024.

Ac­cord­ing to the CBU, the top-per­form­ing nom­i­nees are from Ja­maica, Trinidad and To­ba­go and Be­lize.

" In line with re­cent trends, the or­gan­i­sa­tion with the largest num­ber of nom­i­na­tions is the RJR­GLEAN­ER Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Group from Ja­maica, with twen­ty-nine (29) nom­i­na­tions across its tele­vi­sion, ra­dio and print ser­vices. Close be­hind are the Trinidad & To­ba­go-based ser­vices of the One Caribbean Me­dia Group (OCM) with twen­ty-eight (28) nom­i­na­tions from print, tele­vi­sion, and ra­dio ser­vices. How­ev­er, the sin­gle out­let with the high­est num­ber of nom­i­na­tions is Great Be­lize Pro­duc­tions Lim­it­ed. 

GB­PL’s tele­vi­sion ser­vice, Chan­nel 5, gar­nered twen­ty-five (25) nom­i­na­tions.  Next in line is TTT Ltd, with thir­teen (13) nom­i­na­tions. The coun­try or ter­ri­to­ry with the most nom­i­nat­ed or­gan­i­sa­tions was Trinidad and To­ba­go with eight (8) tele­vi­sion, print, ra­dio, and dig­i­tal out­lets.  This was fol­lowed by Bar­ba­dos with six (6) lo­cal­ly based me­dia or­gan­i­sa­tions, op­er­at­ing ra­dio, tele­vi­sion, dig­i­tal and print ser­vices."

The CBU al­so said that there was a record num­ber of first-time nom­i­nees.

" There were eight (8) or­gan­i­sa­tions that earned their first-ever nom­i­na­tions in the re­gion’s pre­mier me­dia con­tent com­pe­ti­tion, hail­ing from Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, the Cay­man Is­lands, St. Lu­cia and Trinidad and To­ba­go. They in­clud­ed two (2) tele­vi­sion ser­vices from Be­lize: NVi­sion LLP and Chan­nel 7; two (2) news­pa­pers from Bar­ba­dos, the dig­i­tal-on­ly pub­li­ca­tion Bar­ba­dos To­day and the Na­tion News­pa­per.  Oth­er first-time nom­i­nees were the Cay­man Is­lands De­part­ment of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and three ra­dio sta­tions, The Wave, of St. Lu­cia and Hott 93 and TAJ 92.3, both based in Trinidad and To­ba­go."

The tro­phies will be pre­sent­ed to the award win­ners at a Gala event to take place at the Umaya Ho­tel in Pla­cen­cia, Be­lize on Au­gust 13, 2024.