CNN’s historic audience position as the 24/7 news leader is under attack on all sides: from the rise of partisan cable talk and news portals/aggregators (Google, Buzzfeed, Huff PO, etc), to fragmenting/specialized outlets (Politico, Grantland, Gawker) and new options (Facebook Newsfeed, Twitter, Youtube, etc). Competitors regularly win the Primetime ratings wars while deeply resourced non-commercial/premium telecasters win prestige documentary Programming awards.
CNN remains the Breaking News destination, but that occasional viewing habit isn’t enough to sustain CNN’s reputation as the world wide news leader. CNN’s efforts over the past few years to expand their storytelling mix with Original Series and CNN Documentary Films received limited recognition from key TV Industry influencers.
CNN annually produces tens of thousands of programs and reports across 4 networks, multiple websites, and other new media platforms. Their teams of correspondents, producers, anchors and on-air personalities are past award winners. CNN Films and Original Series are produced by accomplished outside producers with award-winning track records.
All of these teams value industry awards as the competitive measurement of their own professional achievements. Internal demands for award entry always exceeded available resources. Priorities and choices were handled by an internal department.
New leadership made a commitment to regain CNN’s reputation as the news leader across a wider range of original storytelling. An expanded slate of Originals and CNN Documentary Films was commissioned and produced. This Programming commitment went hand in hand with high expectations for industry awards and recognition.
At the same time, broader corporate restructuring efforts led to the elimination of an internal awards department. These duties were shifted to marketing professionals who already had full time roles. Performance expectations were increasing while internal expertise diminished.
CNN’s Communications team inherited awards management from the disbanded internal team. Dozens of producing teams advocated for their own entries causing a huge increase in entry demand. Without a deep knowledge base to assess competitive vs. non-competitive entries, too many non-competitive entries were submitted. Overall winning performance fell while entry costs expanded and internal staff time was overburdened.
After a disappointing year, CNN’s team came to us seeking overall entry guidance and specific strategies to improve their recognition chances across a wide range of News and Programming award categories.
CNN’s teams of internal and outside Producers have won awards at various points in their careers. However, the competitive landscape has grown substantially more challenging in the past five years as a fragmenting industry with many new entrants fights ferociously for limited recognition.
CNN had dual internal mandates: increase award performance AND limit overall entry budgets. They couldn’t continue throwing every possible candidate into competition and let Judging sort out the winners. Additionally, some of CNN’s strongest potential entries were being misplaced into overly ambitious categories and/or needed a clearer entry rationale why it deserved to win in the category.
First, we started with deep research, evaluating lists of past nominees/winners in CNN’s priority competitions. This became our benchmark standard to grade potential CNN entries. Next, we looked at the entry materials like Judges – was a clear, cogent, and specific case made that this entry exceeded the stated Judging requirements. Finally, we analyzed competition category choices, seeking the tightest/most-specific match from a wide range of categories.
Our goal was fewer, stronger, better-positioned entries. In some cases, this meant moving entry into a genre-specific sub-category, versus a broader Best Documentary category (where it would get crushed). Or, recommending entries be shifted from Primetime Emmys to News & Documentary Emmys. We also strengthened entry positioning by streamlining written rationales for a tight focus on judging requirements.
2015 News & Documentary Emmys
10 Nominations / 1 Win
Category: Dinosaur 13 – Outstanding Science and Technology Programming
*CNN’s Film’s first News & Documentary Emmy Win
2015 Primetime Emmy Awards
Parts Unknown with Anthony Bourdain
Category: Outstanding Informational Series or Special
Other Wins
Peabody Award, CINE Award, NAMIC, Realscreen Awards
