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All-star turnout for television awards

North East filmmaker John Mapplebeck carried off the main prize at the biggest media awards ceremony outside London this weekend. The Northumberland-based producer-director was awarded the Centre Award at the Royal Television Society North East and Borders event at the Sage, Gateshead on Saturday.

The ceremony was hosted by BBC News presenter Nicholas Owen after the original host Kate Silverton of BBC Breakfast News was forced to pull out within hours of the ceremony because of an operation. John Mapplebeck received his award from Margaret Fay, chair of the event’s main sponsor One NorthEast.

John has been making films for the BBC and ITV for more than 40 years, and has worked with people like Melvyn Bragg, Richard Else, Roger Burgess, Mike Neville, and Eric Robson.

Other winners on the night included ITV Tyne Tees reporter Kenny Toal who won the Journalist award and Chris Jackson of BBC’s Inside Out who carried off the Presenter prize. Newcastle production company Dene Films went off with Best Drama for The Conkerers and the Craft prize for director Stephen Boyle.

RTS Chairman Graeme Thompson said: “We’ve had some high profile success with productions such as Wire in the Blood for ITV and it was fantastic that the most talked about scene in the Oscar nominated Atonement was filmed in Redcar. But the truth is we’ve lost a lot of network talent to London. That’s why so much rests on the Network Development Fund set up by Northern Film and Media and One NorthEast.”

A full list of all the winners can be seen on the RTS website at www.rts.org.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .