ACC Shines Golden Beacon Nominations On Lifetime, MTV, Nick

'Every Woman Counts,' 'Get Yourself Tested,' 'Big Green Help'  Vie For Group's Top Outreach Honor

Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 10/8/2009 2:31:24 PM

The Association of Cable Communicators has announced initiatives from Lifetime, MTV and Nickelodeon as the nominees for the Golden Beacon Award, the group's highest honor.
Lifetime Networks was saluted for its "Every Woman Counts" campaign, while MTV's "GYT: Get Yourself Tested" also received a Golden Beacon nod. Sister Viacom service Nickelodeon was also nominated for its "The Big Green Help" endeavor.
ACC will honor the Golden Beacon Award nominees and announce the winner during the Beacon Awards Gala on Monday, Oct. 26, 2009, at the Hyatt Regency Denver at Colorado Convention Center, kicking off the group's annual conference, "FORUM 2009: Communicating Cable 3.0: People, Products & Value."
ACC's Golden Beacon Award recognizes a communications and public affairs initiative that has made an impact within the cable industry, while enhancing cable's image nationwide. The 2008 Golden Beacon Award recognized Discovery for its programming series, Planet Earth.
"For more than 20 years, the cable industry has been committed to improving the communities it serves at a global, national and local level," said Janice Caluda, 2009 Beacon Awards chair and vice president, operations, Florida Cable Telecommunications Association, in a statement. "Lifetime Networks' Every Woman Counts, MTV's GYT: Get Yourself Tested, and Nickelodeon's The Big Green Help exemplify the best of these efforts over the past year as they have encouraged women to become politically active, people under the age of 25 to get tested for STDs, and children to take care of their planet."
First launched in 1992, and marking its fifth presidential election cycle in 2008, Lifetime's Every Woman Counts is the entertainment industry's only ongoing public advocacy campaign dedicated to amplifying women's voices in the political process, encouraging them to register to vote and run for political office. The 2008 campaign had the most extensive outreach to date, reaching women in more than 97 million homes and included extensive polling; a candidate forum; training for women to run for office; star-studded events at the Democratic and Republican conventions; an essay contest for high school women; a national bus tour to register women to vote; and content on the candidates' positions.
MTV's GYT normalizes STD testing among sexually active people under 25. GYT meets the audience everywhere, including MTV, Facebook, Twitter, cell phones and local Planned Parenthood clinics. To date, GYT content has been streamed more than 500,000 times and garnered several thousand user comments, plus several thousand more tweets, Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Roughly 50,000 people have found local testing centers via the campaign's online and mobile tools, and most critically, testing rates at Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide spiked dramatically during April, when GYT launched, in recognition of "National STD Awareness Month."
On Earth Day 2008, Nickelodeon launched a new, multiyear, global initiative, The Big Green Help, the kid-led, environmental campaign that provides information and tools to help explain climate change to children through on-air messaging, grassroots activity, and online gaming. Millions of kids have joined The Big Green Help and committed themselves to take action on the environment. The campaign's initial thrust resulted in the first-ever green global multiplayer online game; the first Big Green Help Award at the 2009 Kids' Choice Awards; local and national partnerships with environmental and community organizations; and Nick's Earth Day "Power Down," where participants turned off their lights as a signal of environmental consciousness.