Telly Awards

Infobox award
name = Telly Award


imagesize =
caption = Bronze Telly Award
current_awards = 29th Telly Awards
description = Excellence in local, regional, cable, TV commercials, Non-Broadcast Video, TV Program
presenter = Telly Awards
country = United States
year = 1980
website = http://www.tellyawards.com/

The Telly Awards "recognize distinction in creative work," honoring outstanding local and regional television commercials and productions, as well as non-broadcast video productions. Its recognition has been growing as of late years, becoming a reference and spawning a series of copycat awards.

History

The Telly Awards were founded in 1980 by David E. Carter, a 7 time Emmy winner and Clio award winner who has written several books on corporate branding and design and has produced many sketches for the Johnny Carson show.Fact|date=March 2008

Growing recognition

Telly awards organizers claim that, in recent years, the Telly Award has become a highly sought award and that it is recognized as a true accomplishment in the field of Commercials and Television Programs. In 2008, the single entry fee is $60 and the campaign entry is $160. Yet this is not the only fee involved as winners are automatically charged an additional fee for their statues and certificates, $150 for US winners and $175 for international winners. This system has received hundreds of complimentsFact|date=March 2008, since it lets Telly awards keep entry fees much lower than most all other competitions [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20000915205513/www.tellyawards.com/usatelly.htm 2000 version of Telly awards website] , stored at webarchive.org] .

Choosing the winners

Each entry is judged on its own merit, rather than against other entries. In each category there can be multiple Winners (Silver) and Finalists (bronze). There is no stated limit to the number of winners or finalists in any given category. The Telly Awards web site lists thousands of winners annually.

Official documentation provided to winners indicates that 7-10% of over 13,000 international entries receive Silver Telly Awards and 18-25% receive the Bronze Telly Award [ [http://www.tellyawards.com/downloads/pdf/27th%20Telly%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf - 27th Telly Awards Fact Sheet] ] , which means that between 25% and 35% of all entries receive an award. Organizers, on documents such as the 2007 call-for-entry, claim that entries do not compete against other but are judged on individual merit. They also claim that this scoring system is not unique, as they say that other awards (including the Emmy) have a non-compete judging and scoring system.

An Emmy and Silver Telly winner, Richard Friley, was the chairman of the judging panel for the 27th Annual Tellys, which had 25 judges, all of them being past Telly winners [ [http://dvmediaworld.com/awards.html Dvmediaworld awards page] , retrieved on April 1 2008] , and for the 28th, which had 40 judges [ [http://www.tellyawards.com/winners/publicity_tools/press_release/ 28th Telly award winners press release] , retrieved on April 1 2008] .

Past winners

Some organizations have applied for Telly awards and won, some of them now list them together with their Emmy and not mentioning any other award, like NYC media group [ [http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycmg/html/awards/awards.shtml NYC media group list of awards] , retrieved on March 30 2008] and New England Sports Network (NESN) [ [http://www.boston.com/sports/nesn/aboutus/awards/ NESN list of awards] , retrieved on March 30 2008] .

Other list their Telly awards along many other awards of arts and entertainment that they have won, like Emmies, Gold Award from NY Festivals, WorldFest remi awards, CINE eagle award, WGA Award from Writers Guild of America, American Film & Video Association's Red Ribbon, National Media Council Gold Mercury awards and Silver Hugo Award. They also sometimes include awards similar to Telly like Aurora, Aegis or Communicator. Those companies include Discovery channel [ [http://www.nationalparks.org/news/?fa=viewArticle&articleID=44 Discovery channel list of awards] , retrieved on March 30 2008] , Jim Henson Company [ [http://www.henson.com/aboutus_content.php?content=1980awards Jim Henson list of awards] , retrieved on March 30 2008] , Iowa Public Television [ [http://www.iptv.org:80/about_company_awards.cfm Iowa Public Television list of awards] , retrieved on March 30 2008] , Southeastern Channel [ [http://www2.selu.edu/thesoutheasternchannel/awards.html Southeastern channel list of awards] ] , the U.S. Center for Veterans Enterprise (CVE) [ [http://www.va.gov/vetbiz/library/telly.htm US Center for Veterans Enterprise] ] , Microsoft [ [http://www.microsoft.com/spain/accesibilidad/microsoft/awards.aspx Microsoft list of awards] , retrieved on March 30 2008] and other [ [http://forums.creativecow.net/showprofile/1/2753 Walter Biscardi list of awards] , [http://www.akcf.org:80/_pages/about_ACF/ACF_accolades.php Alaska Conservation Fund (ACF) list of awards] , [http://www.wliw.org/about/awards.html WLIW list of awards] , [http://www.usd.edu/press/news/news.cfm?nid=49 National Music Museum of University of Dakota list of awards] , [http://www.ncdhhs.gov/pressrel/3-20-07.htm North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services list of awards] , [http://www.tamcom.com/awards_nat.html TAm communications list of awards] , retrieved on March 30 2008] .

Actor Morgan Freeman won two Telly awards and was quoted as saying that he was very proud and honored. The award was for narrating NRCS public service announcements. [citeweb|url=http://www.nrcs.usda.gov:80/feature/highlights/freemanpsa.html|title=Actor Morgan Freeman Narrates New Public Service Announcements for NRCS|accessdate=2008-04-02] .

Once, the award was given to an interactive video of a fish tank, and the winning video was put up for auction on eBay [citeweb|url=http://cgi.ebay.com/FISH-TANK-TELLY-Award-Winning-Tanks-NEW-DVD_W0QQitemZ180088910770QQihZ008QQcategoryZ617QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem|title=FISH TANK TELLY Award Winning Tanks NEW DVD|accessdate=2007-02-28] .

imilar awards

There is a host of younger awards that have copied the fee system and other key characteristics of Telly awards, like the lack of an award-giving public ceremony, not disclosing the name of judges, and using winners of past years as judges. That includes making elements on their websites very similar to Telly awards' website, with the similarities including things such as format of lists, percentage of winners and finalists, fees, using codes for categories and then using them on the winner list without explaining what category goes with each code (making it impossible for a web visitor to know in which category each award was given), all sort of sentences (sometimes word-by-word), privacy policy, benefits of winning, using RS Owens for the manufacturing of the statue, claims that their awards are on the level of Emmy and Oscar, online forms to enter competition and a long list of similarities that can't be explained by chance. This in one case extended to copy/pasting the privacy policy page from Telly's website and forgetting to replace the Telly name before posting it on their site [ [http://www.communicatorawards.com/faq/privacy_policy Privacy policy page at Communicator Awards website] , several sentences making statements like "The Telly Awards is committed to protecting your privacy", and several paragraphs identical to [http://www.tellyawards.com/faq/privacy_policy/] , retrieved March 27 2008 (the page had been taken down as of 30 March, 3 days after this fact appearing on wikipedia)] .

However, there is no website identical to Telly's website, and all of them have some characteristics that set them apart from the Telly award and some characteristics that are similar but not identical. The first appearance of Telly's website on the Internet is registered as May 2000 [ [http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.tellyawards.com/ webarchive.org: copies of tellyawards.com] , retrieved March 30 2008] .

* Aurora award [http://www.auroraawards.com/mainFr.html]
* Aegis awards [http://www.aegisawards.com/] founded in 1981
* Communicator award [http://www.communicatorawards.com] founded in 1984
* Davey awards [http://www.daveyawards.com] founded in 2005
* Creativity awards [http://www.creativityawards.com/] founded in 1980

ame claims about awards

The Telly Awards website states that the awards were designed by the same firm that makes the Oscar and Emmy. [cite web | url = http://www.tellyawards.com/awards/awards/ | title = Telly Awards, Awards | accessdate = 2008-06-01 ]

The Aurora website states that the statues are cast in the same foundry that creates the Emmy, Oscar and Clio statues. [cite web | url = http://www.auroraawards.com/content/news.html | title = About the Aurora Awards | accessdate = 2008-06-01 ]

"Redesigned statuette from the same firm that produces the Oscar® and Emmy® Awards." [cite web | url = http://www.communicatorawards.com/ | title = Main page of Communicator Awards website | accessdate = 2008-06-01 ]

"The Davey Awards statuette is custom designed and handcrafted by Encore Awards, producers of the Golden Globe Award and other prestigious memorabilia" [cite web | url = http://www.daveyawards.com/awards/awards/ | title = Awards | accessdate = 2008-06-01 ]

ame claims about decisions

"Judges evaluate entries to recognize distinction in creative work — entries do not compete against each other. Instead, entries are judged against a high standard of merit." [cite web | url = http://www.tellyawards.com/awards/judging/ | title = Judging | accessdate = 2008-06-01 ]

"Aegis Winners are decided on their own merits rather than by direct comparison to others." [cite web | url = http://www.aegisawards.com/faq.html | title = FAQ, How are entries judged? | accessdate = 2008-06-01 ]

"This method allows programs to compete on their own merits rather than by arbitrary comparison with others." [cite web | url = http://www.auroraawards.com/content/rules.html | title = Rules and Eligibilty (sic) | accessdate = 2008-06-01 ]

"Entries are judged to evaluate distinction in creative work. In determining Excellence and Distinction Winners, entries are judged on their merits based on a standard of excellence" [cite web | url = http://www.communicatorawards.com/awards/judging/ | title = Judging | accessdate = 2008-06-01 ]

"Entries are judged to evaluate distinction in creative work. In determining Gold and Silver winners, entries are judged on their merits based on a standard of excellence as determined by the IAVA" [cite web | url = http://www.daveyawards.com/awards/judging/ | title = Judging and the Academy | accessdate = 2008-06-01 ]

Notes

* [http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=83649 Digital Video Information Network] , discussion of Telly awards

External links

* [http://www.tellyawards.com/ Official website]