The River City News was nominated for six and won three Blue Chip Community Media Awards on Wednesday night at the Redmoor Theater in Cincinnati.
The Blue Chips honor the work of local cable access and community media producers.
RCN won for RCN Live! 2.0 in the category of Innovative Programming. The pre-election event last fall drew hundreds to Hotel Covington for the live podcast modeled after HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. Hosted by RCN founder Michael Monks, guests included Lexington Mayor Jim Gray (who was challenging U.S. Senator Rand Paul at the time) and Gateway Community & Technical College president Fernando Figueroa, and a lively panel made up of former state auditor Adam Edelen, local TV personality Alison Montoya, and former Enquirer political writer Pat Crowley.
“RCN Live! is my favorite thing that we’ve done here because it allows for us to show off our creative and fun side while also still being serious about the news,” Monks said. “We’ve done the show twice now and both times have been huge successes for us. It’s a unique and special kind of programming that no one else around here can do. We’re going to continue to build on it.”
RCN Live! 3.0 is expected to premier in the summer.
The second award for RCN on Wednesday came in the category of Animation & Graphics for its recreation of the opening title sequence of HBO’s Game of Thrones, “If Game of Thrones Were Set in Northern Kentucky”, which was produced by Michael Monks and Cam Miller.
“I am a huge Game of Thrones fan but I have no video skills to speak of, so asking Cam MIller to do this for RCN was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” Monks said. “He nailed it. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen. I never get tired of watching it. I’m thrilled that Cam’s work was honored.”
Monks and Miller show off their awards after Wednesday’s ceremony
The third award was in the category of Entertainment Programming for RCN’s production, “Transforming Historic Properties in Newport“, produced by Michael Monks and Doug Strong and hosted by Mark Ramler.Â
“RCN has long been committed to covering historic preservation issues in Northern Kentucky and we expanded that last year with this special video,” Monks said. “Doug Strong is a talented filmmaker and Mark Ramler is a genius, so with those two working on this project I knew it would be a hit with viewers.”Â
A new set of videos about preservation will be released in May in conjunction with National Historic Preservation Month.
Multiple Blue Chip awards went to the Telecommunication Board of Northern Kentucky, Norse Media, and Campbell County Media Central. Fort Thomas Matters won two awards for Audio Production (“Making of a Murderer”) and Inspirational Programming (“Story Matters”), and Cam Miller won for his documentary Old Latonia: America’s Most Beautiful Race Course in the Cultural Awareness Category.
This is the second year that RCN has competed at the Blue Chips. Last year, The River City News was nominated three times and RCN Live!, the debut of the new series, was honored as winner in the Audio Presentation category. With Wednesday’s wins, RCN now has 4 total Blue Chip Awards.
You can watch the 2017 Blue Chip Community Media Awards show here:
-Staff report
Top photo: Michael Monks buckles in RCN’s 3 Blue Chip awards for the ride back to Covington