BANFF — HBO’s John Adams won the grand jury prize as the best of the best at the Banff World Television Awards, or Rockies, ceremony on Monday. The Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning U.S. miniseries about the American president also won the best drama award.

‘OMFG. We got the big one,’ said David Baldwin, executive vice-president of programming planning at HBO, in accepting the grand jury prize. ‘John Adams was a special project for HBO.’

The winner was unveiled by Canadian actress Jacqueline MacInnes Wood of the Bold and the Beautiful, with a Mountie standing behind her.

Special awards went to Paul Gross, who was presented the NBC Universal Canada Award of Distinction; Victor Garber, who received the Award of Excellence; and Mark McKinney, who won the Sir Peter Ustinov Award.

Accepting his award, McKinney deadpanned to the audience, ‘I’ve always had a fantasy about winning a big award like this, but in my dream you were all standing.’

‘It’s a great thing. It’s hard to put into words. It’s humbling [to get the award],’ said Gross, in an interview. He had driven to Banff from British Columbia, where he’s filming a western.

The Rockie for best Canadian program went to Passage, from PTV Productions for BBC Scotland. The 90-minute documentary about Scottish doctor John Rae and the Northwest Passage was helmed by John Walker. The prize is sponsored by Playback.

Receiving special mention as runner-up for both the grand jury and best Canadian program prizes was Paris 1919.

The other grand prize winners were Channel 4’s The Curse of the Mona Lisa (U.K.) for best documentary, Food Network Canada’s Family Restaurant: The Quons (Be Bold) (Canada) for best entertainment, Canal Plus’ Ne dites pas à ma mère (France) for best francophone, Bravo!’s I Met the Walrus (Canada) for best kids and animation, and NHK’s BITWORLD – Rescue Toya! (Japan) for best interactive. The best interactive Rockie was presented on Saturday.

The francophone and kids and animation Rockies are new this year.

The awards ceremony was hosted by Entertainment Tonight Canada‘s Rick Campanelli. He joked that ETC is the country’s number one entertainment show, at least according to Global, and eighth, according to CTV — referring to the ongoing media release war in which both networks claim to have the highest-rated entertainment shows.