ELIGIBILITY

Only programmes produced by television broadcasters (terrestrial, cable and satellite) or television production companies whose PRIMARY BASE is in one of the following countries will be eligible: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, People’s Republic of China, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand.

Programmes co-produced between companies whose primary base is not in one of the countries listed above will not be eligible.

To ensure eligibility of both broadcaster and TV production company (if applicable), broadcasters should credit the production company used in the space provided on the Entry Form.

To be eligible for entry, all programmes must be broadcast for the first time between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009. No repeated programmes aired during this period will be eligible. Proof in the form of a published schedule of the transmission time and date will be required.

SUBMISSIONS

Only duly completed entries using the Official Entry Form are accepted. Failure to comply may result in disqualification. In addition, each entry must include the following:

1. An English-language soundtrack or English subtitles or an accompanying transcript in English if submitted programme is in another language.
2. All required supporting documentation as indicated in the entry form.
3. Payment for each entry. Entries will not be included for judging if payment is not received together with the entry form.

All submissions must be signed by one of the following: President, Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director, Head of Programming or Head of Department. In addition, the form should also include the company stamp, chop or seal.

With the exception of the Performance categories, composite entries may not be entered into the Awards. For all other categories, submitted programmes must be completed and entered as originally broadcast. The only permitted form of editing is to remove commercial breaks. Any composite programmes will automatically be disqualified.

For all Performance categories, namely: Best News Presenter or Anchor (PE060), Best Current Affairs Presenter (PE061), Best Entertainment Presenter (PE062), Best Drama Performance by an Actor (PE063), Best Drama Performance by an Actress (PR064) and Best Comedy Performance by an Actor/Actress (PE065), the following are required:

1. A maximum 5-minute composite must be submitted. All selected items must be from the same programme and episode of which is within the awards qualifying period.
2. All submissions using composite entries must also include, on the same DVD, a completed and unedited programme (within the qualifying period) featuring the submitted presenter/performer.

All programme entries must be in DVD PAL format. A Beta SP will only be required upon successful selection for the final shortlist. Before sending, please ensure the submitted DVD(s) is (are) free from read error problems.

Submissions received after the closing date for the Awards will only be accepted at the discretion of the organiser and judges.

Deadline for entries is July 31, 2009.

In the event that both the broadcaster and the independent production company enter the same programme, the broadcaster’s entry will take precedence over the entry submitted by the production company.

In the event of duplicate entries, entry fees will not be refund.

All tapes and submitted entry materials will only be kept for one month following the announcement of the winners. Materials can only be returned if the submitting company arranges fully paid return delivery costs.

JUDGING

The Awards will be judged by a minimum of six juries, each ideally comprising 5 or more members. The minimum number of judges required to judge each separate category is three.

No more than four representatives from one country may be on the same jury. No standard jury will include more than one representative from one company.

The judges reserve the right to request further information about the programme or performer from the nominator. Failure to meet such requests in sufficient detail may result in disqualification.

The judging process will be conducted on-line, and the results will be tabulated and audited by international auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. Judges may vote for programmes produced for, or submitted by their company or associated company. However, points awarded for that particular judge’s vote will be an average of all the judges’ votes (including their own). The averages will be rounded up or down to the nearest whole number.

No announcement of the winners will be made in advance of the Awards Ceremony. Short listed programmes, performers and companies will be announced in November 2009.

The judges’ decision will be final. Neither the Asian Television Awards nor the judges will enter into any discussion or correspondence regarding the outcome of any decision.

TERRESTRIAL CHANNEL OF THE YEAR AWARD AND THE CABLE & SATELLITE CHANNEL OF THE YEAR AWARD

Points from the winning entries of the various categories from the Awards will be used to determine the winners of the Terrestrial Channel of the Year Award and the Cable & Satellite Channel of the Year Award.

NOTE: for 2009, these Awards are for the single terrestrial or cable & satellite channel gaining the most wins or highly commendeds for programming produced for and aired on that single channel. Points will not be combined for programming wins or highly commendeds from sibling channels under the same broadcaster or network.

For each win in a Programming category (e.g. Best Children’s Programme), the channel will receive 10 points. For each highly commended in a Programming category, the channel will receive 2 points.

For each win in the Performance and Technical & Creative category (e.g. Best Comedy Actor/Actress), the channel will receive half the points awarded for a Programming category win, i.e. a channel that wins in a Performance and Technical & Creative category will get 5 points, and highly commended 1 point.

Only entries submitted directly by broadcasters will be counted towards points for Terrestrial Channel of the Year Award and Cable & Satellite Channel of the Year. Entries submitted by production companies directly will not count towards Terrestrial Channel of the Year Award and Cable & Satellite Channel of the Year totals.

The channel with the highest number of points will be awarded Terrestrial Channel of the Year Award or Cable & Satellite Channel of the Year; the second highest terrestrial channel and cable & satellite channel will both be highly commended.