BCTV Vancouver came away from the Canadian Association of Broadcaster’s annual convention the sole triple Gold Ribbon Award winner.

‘Extensive, thorough and continuous coverage’ of the blizzard of ’96, the city’s worst snowstorm in 75 years, earned the station top honors for news, while Safe At Home: How To Lock Out Crime, a dramatic one-hour video produced in cooperation with the rcmp aimed at stopping break-ins, won in the information category. ‘Hit the Road’ scored gold in the tv promotion category.

Also from the West Coast, CKVU-TV Vancouver took home a community service Gold Ribbon for its U-TV Children’s Miracle Network Telethon. u.tv raised over $5.3 million for the B.C. Children’s Hospital through the 21-hour telethon and year-round initiatives.

atv Halifax also earned a gold in the community service category for its IWK Grace Telethon, which raised more than $3.2 million for the IWK Grace Hospital for Children.

Rounding out the community service gold winners was CISA-TV Lethbridge with its ‘Grow a Row’ campaign to keep local food bank shelves stocked with fresh produce and encourage gardeners to plant extra vegetables for the needy, and CHBC-TV Kelowna, whose ‘Weather Bear Food Bank’ project raised $173,000 for the hungry at Christmas.

CTV’s popular one-hour drama Due South (Alliance) won the industry’s first Gold Ribbon for multi-market programming.

CFTM-TV Montreal won in the entertainment category with Power of the Dream/Le Pouvoir d’un reve, a 90-minute special featuring Celine Dion and a group of Olympic Gold medalists including Sylvie Bernier and the late Marie-Soleil Tougas.

A Citytv, ‘CityPulse Multicultural Spot’ walked away with a Gold Ribbon in the category of promotion news and information program tv.

At the Central Canada Broadcast Engineers’ banquet, James Mercer, vp of engineering at ONtv, was presented the Gold Ribbon for engineering achievement. CFRN-TV Edmonton’s weather specialist John Berry won for outstanding service by an individual broadcaster.

The prestigious Gold Ribbon Award for Broadcast Excellence went to Philippe de Gaspe Beaubien, chairman of Telemedia and former chair of the cab.

Also at this year’s convention, cab became the first organization ever to be honored by The Vanier Institute of the Family – an independent institute promoting the well being of Canadian families – for its year-long national public service campaign against violence.

Three hundred and fifty radio and tv stations contributed nearly $10 million in airtime to the ‘Violence: You Can Make a Difference’ campaign.

cab’s agenda also included electing a new board for 1997/98, with Duff Roman, vp, industry affairs, CHUM Ltd., at the helm for a second term as chair.

Last year’s tv vice chair James Macdonald, president and ceo of WIC Television, was elected chair of the tv board and Michel Carter, vp and ceo of Cogeco Radio Television, vice chair.

Members of the board include Rick Arnish, president and gm, CFJC-TV Kamloops; Jim Bagshaw, president and ceo, Calgary 7; Franklin Delaney, president and ceo, Television Quatre Saisons, Montreal; and Fred Filthaut, vp and gm, cfrn-tv in Edmonton.

Other members include Daniel Lamarre, president and ceo of Tele-Metropole, Montreal; Greg Mudry, vp and gm, ATV/ASN Halifax; Beverley Oda, Baton Broadcasting senior vp of programming; Mark Rubinstein, vp gm Citytv Toronto; Leslie Sole, exec vp and gm, CFMT-TV Toronto; Jim Rusnak, president, ceo and gm, ckvu; Jim Sward, president CanWest Global; and Vaughn Tozer, president and gm of CKY-TV Winnipeg.