Cynopsis held a double celebration today – winners of the TV Awards and Rising Star Awards were announced in New York City, during a lunchtime ceremony at the Yale Club. Presiding over the packed house were Cynopsis publisher Roberta Caploe and Chris Jones, host of Facebook Watch series Double Take, with special guest presenter, Orange Is the New Black’s Selenis Leyva. After Jones did his Drake impersonation – dancing and all – the awards kicked off with Starz’ Sweetbitter as Best New Series (a complete list of winners is below).
The TV Awards saluted a year of content in a wide range of genres, from thought-provoking documentaries, to intrepid travel, to dynamic drama, while our Rising Stars represented the innovators and stand-out performers who are driving progress in marketing, research, content, and more.
A highlight of the event was the presentation of the Luminary Award to industry legend Henry S. Schleiff, Group President of Discovery Inc.’s Investigation Discovery, Travel Channel, American Heroes Channel and Destination America. In addition to his successes at Discovery – including turning a little channel called ID into a top three network for women and the number one network in all of television for audience engagement – Henry has held leadership positions at Crown Media Holdings, Viacom, HBO and Court TV.
Paula Zahn, Executive Producer and host of ID’s On the Case with Paula Zahn, had the honor of presenting him with the award, and the applause was hearty and heartfelt. Answering the question posed to award winners, Zahn started her introduction by responding to it herself: “The favorite part of my career is working for Henry Schleiff,” she smiled. Zahn described how her ID boss made his mark on the industry, starting with cameras in the courtroom. Turning small networks into behemoths became his calling card, she explained. “Bravo, Henry,” said Zahn. “He knows not only how to reach an audience, but how to keep them.”
“Thank you for saying those incredibly nice things about me…that I wrote for you,” joked Schleiff as he took the podium. “You chose the shorter version.” Schleiff also noted that it was interesting being in the Yale Club, having been put on the waiting list for Yale Law School back in the day. “I never heard back, but it’s not looking good,” he said. Schleiff tipped his hat to the work networks are doing today, and talked about the importance of not only entertaining audiences, but inspiring them. “There is no ‘i’ in team – or even Teamster – but there is in friends and family,” said Schleiff.
There were plenty of OITNB fans in the house, as Selenis Leyva got a big round of applause. “I am so nervous – I failed public speaking in college,” said Leyva, who proceeded to deliver lively intros that demonstrated she’d overcome that. “Don’t you love man with an accent?” she grinned after one Brit’s thank you. (“You are killing it with the public speaking,” noted Crown Media Networks Rising Star Megan Van Tine.)
More highlights: a bottle of champagne to the rowdiest table – the 25 tables did their best to earn the bubbly, starting with the appetizer – as well as the clips from shows as varied as CNBC’s The Profit, UPtv’s GilMORE the Merrier holiday stunt, and Crikey! It’s the Irwins.
One winner summed up sentiment of the celebration best: “It’s great to be recognized, but it’s even greater to be in the room with everyone here.”
A full list of TV Awards winners is below. For details on our Rising Stars honorees, go here.
Reality Series (Family-focused): CNBC’s Jay Leno’s Garage (tie)
and
E! Entertainment’s Keeping Up with the Kardashians
Reality Competition Series (Food): Food Network’s Guy’s Grocery Games
Reality Series (Adventure): Animal Planet’s Crikey! It’s the Irwins (tie)
and
Discovery Channel’s Gold Rush
Reality Series (Food/Lifestyle): Food Network’s Valerie’s Home Cooking
Reality Series (Music/Arts/Entertainment): Paramount Network’s Lip Sync Battle
Reality Series (Real Estate): HGTV’s Property Brothers
Reality Series Reality Series (Travel): Litton Entertainment’s Ocean Treks with Jeff Corwin
Reality Series (True Crime): Oxygen Media’s Unspeakable Crime: The Killing of Jessica Chambers
Awards Show: National Geographic’s Breakthrough Prize 2018
New Series: Starz’ Sweetbitter
Series (Comedy or Game Show): 7ate9 Entertainment’s Massive Monster Mayhem
Series: Documentary: Intellectual Property Corp. and Showtime’s Active Shooter: America Under Fire (tie)
and
Smithsonian Channel’s America in Color
Series (Drama or Historical): Starz’ Outlander
Series (Limited): National Geographic’s The Long Road Home
Series (Talk): Nashville Insider LLC’s Nashville Insider
Branded Integration: NBCUniversal’s Ulta Beauty & TODAY: Embracing Your Beauty
Casting: National Geographic’s The Long Road Home
Commercial or Infomercial: The Amy Palmer Group’ Uber Eats – Zach King Campaign
Companion Podcast: Showtime Networks’ Escape At Dannemora: Real Crime Profile Podcast Series
Documentary Special: TV One’s Two Sides: Eric Garner
Holiday Stunt Programming: UPtv’s GilMORE the Merrier
Host: CNBC’s The Profit with Marcus Lemonis
Host (Food): Food Network’s Bobby Flay (Beat Bobby Flay)
Host (Home Improvement): HGTV’s Jasmine Roth (Hidden Potential)
Marketing Campaign for a TV Series: TV Land’s Younger
Network Rebrand: Discovery Inc.’s MotorTrend
OTT Service: WWE Network
TV Series Promo: NBC Sports’ NBC Sunday Night Football – The Great Debate
Use of Companion Video: MTV’s Wild ‘N Out Season 12 – Chance The Rapper Surprises CAU Students
Ad-Supported Cable Network (Distributed to 1-50 Million U.S. Households): Cooking Channel
Ad-Supported Cable Network (50-100 million): Hallmark Channel
Team of the Year: Discovery Inc.’s TLC Network
