The NAB Education Foundation named winners of the annual Service to America Awards.
Radio winners include Univision Communications; KSTP(FM), Hubbard Radio, Minneapolis; WYCT(FM), ADX Communications Pensacola, Fla.; Omni Broadcasting; and WCRX(FM), Columbia College Chicago, Chicago.
Univision Communications and its local radio and television stations will receive the Service to America President’s Special Award. Univision launched a national public service campaign on Oct. 1, 2007, designed to educate and prepare Hispanics for the transition to digital television.
KTSP will receive the Service to Children Award, Radio, for its annual “KS95 for Kids Radiothon,” which raised more than $912,000 in 2007. The 60-hour broadcast, a year-round partnership among KSTP, Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare and Children’s Cancer Research Fund, has raised more than $9.5 million since 1999.
WYCT will receive the Service to America Friend in Need Award for its contribution to a local Naval Reserve Unit that was deploying to Kuwait. The station got to know Battalion 11, broadcast their stories and saw them off when they left for the Middle East. For Thanksgiving, the station sent a member of its morning show to the Middle East to deliver 14,000 letters it had received, far exceeding its goal of 3,000.
Omni Broadcasting will receive the Service to America Partnership Award for its annual 24-hour “Radiothon to End Child Abuse.” In 2007, Omni stations provided free airtime valued at $276,000. The 2007 radiothon raised more than $220,000. More than $2 million has been raised since the partnership began in 1989.
The Service to America College Radio Award will go to WCRX at Columbia College Chicago, for its community service. The station has held food drives, job fairs and broadcasts student-produced PSAs and original programming. In 2007, WCRX won two student production awards from College Broadcasters, Inc., one for best documentary and one for best PSA.
