Sri Lanka’s Shree FM and India’s MY FM will receive the NAB International Broadcasting Excellence Award, which recognizes organizations for “excellent leadership and originality in serving their audience through broadcast advancement or remarkable service to the community.”
“India’s 94.3 MY FM tirelessly served their community, dedicating its airwaves to several philanthropic initiatives aimed at helping its listening area,” NAB stated. “With a broadcast network that spans 17 cities and seven states, MY FM successfully coordinated large-scale blood collection drives and clothing donation centers. A 10-day warm clothes drive alone provided clothes to more than 10,000 homes and spanned across three cities. The station also successfully initiated a voter education effort, launching a creative campaign to reach listeners with information on the importance of their vote.”
It said Shree FM is one of the most popular stations in Sri Lanka and has participated in programs aimed at providing health care assistance.
“In 2008, Shree FM launched ‘Shree Sathkaraka Rohala’ (Shree Mobile Medical Camp), which assists citizens living in economically challenged communities with free health care services.”
A program financed through the station, Shree FM provided US$200,000 in medical services, assisting some 57,000 individuals.
Past winners have included CKLM(FM) in Canada, the Korean Broadcasting System and Avtoradio in Russia.
Update
Shree FM’s win garnered much attention back home in Sri Lanka for the station. Jeewaka Edirisinghe, managing director of Shree FM’s parent company E.A.P. Edirisinghe Organisation, presented the award to the president of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa. The award also made the Swarnavahini Television “Live at 8” newscast.