Canada corners new Rockie category

The U.K. leads the race going into this year’s Rockie Awards with 37 nominations, followed by Canada and the U.S. with 28 and 25, respectively.

The annual awards of the Banff World Television Festival revealed the last of its nominations on Monday, nodding to such notable British titles as the BBC political doc Age of Terror and the Channel 4 comedy Fonejacker, and to Canuck programs including Little Mosque on the Prairie and The Score’s Cabbie All Stars.

Canada has swept the nominations for one of the new Rockie categories, with three of the four nods for sports entertainment programming. CBC’s Hockey Day in Canada and Countdown to Beijing are up for the prize, along with Cabbie All Stars, an irreverent interview series. The awards have also added a best sports documentary program.

Canada also dominates cartoons, with four shows nominated in the animation category including the Oscar-nominated short I Met the Walrus, Studio B Productions’ Kit vs. Kat and Cuppa Coffee Studios’ Life’s a Zoo.tv ‘2D or Not 2D’.

Cuppa Coffee and its Zoo franchise scored a second nomination in the music/variety category for the episode ‘Dr D Plays House’. The stop-motion show, which airs on Teletoon, is a spoof on reality television and features original songs.

The festival revealed its first round of nominations late last week, following up with the final categories including dramas and interactive on Monday.

‘The Banff World Television Awards category nominees selected this year represent not only outstanding TV programming but also celebrate the continuing evolution and innovation in the TV industry,’ said festival head Peter Vamos in a release.