NCTA Shows Spirit Awards
Staff -- Multichannel News, 4/9/2001
WASHINGTON — The National Cable Television Association doled out its Community Spirit Awards on March 28, honoring outstanding achievement in local and regional cable programming.
Awards were given in six categories:
- Cable systems with fewer than 50,000 subscribers: Sunflower Cablevision, Lawrence, Kan., for airing 70 hours of community television each week.
- Cable systems with 50,000 to 150,000 subscribers: Comcast Cable Communications, Southfield, Mich., for offering 4,750 hours of diverse, community programming in 2000 to more than 100,000 subscribers in Detroit's northern suburbs.
- Cable systems with more than 150,000 subscribers: Cox Communications Inc. of Louisiana (New Orleans), for highlighting the community's diverse culture on local channel Cox 10.
- Regional news network: New England Cable News, Newton, Mass., which serves more than 2 million subscribers in six New England states. Last year, NECN's public-service campaigns helped raise $12.5 million to fight cancer and $30 million to help protect Maine woodlands.
- Regional sports network: Comcast SportsNet, Philadelphia, for extending its coverage beyond major-league sports games to include sports news and conversation. A companion Web site, comcastsportsnet.com, launched last year.
- Regional community and public-affairs network: Rainbow Media's The MetroChannels, New York, N.Y., for providing a branded package of channels created for New York City and surrounding communities.
Senior executives in the programming, MSO operations and public-affairs fields judged the competition.
