The International News Media Association (INMA) has unveiled winners in its 2021 Global Media Awards competition, with a German regional publisher taking the top prize and an Austrian regional publisher nabbing the most first-place trophies.
Australian publishers amongst the winners included News Corp for how it managed the transition of regional titles from print to digital.
In a virtual ceremony broadcast via INMA.org, YouTube, and Facebook Live, INMA revealed 58 first-place winners across 20 categories aimed at surfacing innovation and best practices in news brands, optimising the use of media platforms, subscriptions, business development, and data and insights.
The Global Media Awards competition announcement was supported by the Google News Initiative.
No Australian publishers made it as finalists in the Best in Regions category. Taking that accolade for the Asia/Pacific was New Zealand’s Stuff for “Ta Matou Pono, Our Truth”.
Eleven companies won multiple first-place awards including News Corp Australia and Nine who won two each.
The other Australian winner was Australian Community Media (ACM).
The 2021 Global Media Awards competition garnered 644 entries from 212 news media brands in 37 countries. Participants included newspaper media, magazine media, digital media, television media, and radio media.
The awards were announced by members of INMA’s Young Professionals Committee and included Nine’s head of brand & acquisition Belle Tayler.
Australian winners at 2021 Global Media Awards
Category 3: Best use of an event to build a news brand
Regional Brands
Second Place: Mackay Daily Mercury, Australia, “My Town”
Groups
Third Place: News Corp Australia, Australia, “Project Ella: Migrating 100+ Years of Local Print Loyalty and Community Dependency to Digital Mastheads”
Best Use of Video
Groups
First Place: News Corp Australia, Australia, “The Night Watch”
Best Use of Audio
Groups
First Place: Australian Community Media, Australia, “Voice of Real Australia”
Second Place: News Corp Australia, Australia, “On Guard: Stories from Inside Australia’s Toughest Prisons”
Best Initiative to Acquire Subscribers
Regional Brands
Third Place: The Courier-Mail, Australia, “Scoring with College Sport”
Groups
Second Place: News Corp Australia, Australia, “Heroing Local Journalism”
Third Place: News Corp Australia, Australia, “On Guard: Stories from Inside Australia’s Toughest Prisons”
Best Initiative to Retain Subscribers
Regional Brands
Third Place: The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Australia, “Project Engage”
National Brands
Honourable Mention: News Corp Australia, Australia, “Project Ella: Migrating 10,000 Local Print Subscribers and Casual Readers to Digital Subscriptions and Metropolitan Newspaper Subscriptions”
Best Idea to Grow Advertising Sales
Groups
First Place: News Corp Australia, Australia, “Project Rapid Fire: Rapid Revenue Retention Following the Closure Of 40+ Print Titles”
Best Execution of Native Advertising
Regional Brands
Third Place: Herald Sun, Australia, “Best You Can Be”
Best Use of Data to Drive Subscriptions, Content, Product Design
Groups
First Place: Nine, Australia, “Retaining Digital Subscribers Beyond the Pandemic”
Honourable Mention: News Corp Australia, Australia, “Project Ella: Leveraging Our Audience Data to Transition Local Print Subscribers and Audiences to Digital Subscriptions”
Best Data Dashboard
Groups
First Place: Nine, Australia, “TED – Topic Editor Dashboard”
