At a closed doors event yesterday afternoon, introduced by influential media expert Rob Norman, CEO of Group M, the AOP Digital Publishing Awards Shortlist was revealed to judges and AOP members.
In a year characterised by innovation and new devices, the AOP Awards feature a significant uplift in entries for mobile innovations. Identified as the primary area of investment by digital publishers in the AOP Census this year, the shortlist for the Digital Publishing Awards will be celebrating success in this field. Associated Northcliffe Digital, The Financial Times, Guardian News and Media, IPC Media, ITN, Telegraph Media Group, Thomson Reuters and Trader Media are this year’s beneficiaries of shortlisted mobile entries.
The shortlisted nominations from across the 17 categories, represent consumer and business publishers. The most shortlisted nominations were received by Guardian News & Media, who picked up 13 nominations across 10 categories. Closely followed by IPC, who received 12 nominations across 7 categories and Reed Business Information with 11 nominations across 7 categories. Trinity Mirror received 5 nominations across 3 categories; while Incisive Media picked up 5 nominations across 4 categories; and Telegraph Media received 5 nominations across 5 categories.
The broadcasters include 4 nominations for BBC Worldwide and 2 nominations for BBC. Channel 4 scored 4 nominations across 4 categories; ITV gained 3 nominations across 3 categories and BSkyB is nominated in one category.
Tim Faircliff, AOP Chairman and General Manager, Consumer Media, Thomson Reuters comments, “I’m delighted with the volume and high calibre of entries from all sectors of the publishing industry this year for our popular annual awards. Even more than usual we need to acknowledge publisher brands and individuals that continue to innovate in terms of services and products that provide effective results, and which demonstrate commercial success in the digital publishing arena. The AOP Awards are designed to recognise, showcase and reward those businesses that have made a difference to our industry – and we look forward to welcoming the publishing community to our Awards ceremony at the Roundhouse, Camden in June”.
AOP introduced a new category this year for Ad Sales Technology Platform, to recognise the crucial role played by ad technology providers in driving digital publishers’ revenue forward. Eight companies made it onto the shortlist for this category, including: 247 Real Media, Adify, AudienceScience, Maxifier, The Rubicon Project, Skimlinks, Solbright and Vibrant Media.
The AOP Digital Publishing Awards celebrate excellence in digital publishing across the trade body’s varied membership. An analysis of the four main subject areas showed that publishers/website categories led the way with 29% of all entries, Innovation categories followed closely behind with 27% (innovation, video, launch, research) commercial categories represented 26% (individual, teams, cross media, commercial partnership) of the entries, while Editorial (individual and teams), attracted 18% of all entries.
For full breakdown of the shortlist, see here: http://www.ukaop.org.uk/shortlist2010
The winners of the AOP Awards will be announced at the Awards dinner, on 10 June 2010 at The Roundhouse, Camden. Early Bird rates for tables or individual places are available until 7 May, book online at www.ukaop.org.uk/awards or contact Ron Nussey on 020 7400 7532 ron.nussey@ukaop.org.uk and Tilly Martin on 020 7400 7566 tilly.martin@ukaop.org.uk.
