Cakram Awards celebrates media excellence

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sun, 03/26/2006 8:54 AM | Life

Tam Notosusanto, Contributor, Jakarta

The annual Cakram Awards, now in its seventh year, were given on Thursday evening to reward excellence in Indonesian media. With this year's theme, Sowing the Seeds of Change, the organizers and jury seemed set to hail media organizations and institutions that promoted change and came up with significant breakthroughs in 2005.

Prominent daily Kompas was anointed National Newspaper of the Year, beating three finalists Media Indonesia, Republika and Koran Tempo In its written statement, the jury explained that Kompas was deemed courageous for a makeover of its decades-old conservative outlook. Another quality of Kompas the jury admired was that the publication had successfully cruised through several eras and had amassed a readership spanning several generations.

On a related note, Kompas Vice CEO Agung Adiprasetyo was named Advertising Person of the Year for motivating change in the leading newspaper. To inform the public of Kompas' imminent editorial and design makeover, Agung came up with a nifty advertising campaign featuring images of historic rebels Soe Hok Gie and Chairil Anwar placed in other newspapers. The campaign was a success in informing readers of Kompas' 40th anniversary as well as its new image.

The 60-year-old Yogyakarta-based newspaper Kedaulatan Rakyat received recognition as Local Newspaper of the Year, winning over finalists Semarang's Suara Merdeka, East Kalimantan's Tribun Kaltim and Bandung's Pikiran Rakyat. Other print winners were the teenage periodical Hai for Magazine of the Year and the gossip publication Cek & Ricek as Tabloid of the Year.

Television station TPI triumphed over close rivals Trans TV, Metro TV, RCTI and SCTV for National TV of the Year. The jury honored the station for its phenomenal achievement in jumping to the top rank of TV broadcasters in 2005. TPI's breakthrough programming, which includes The Indonesian Dangdut Contest (KDI) and religious sinetron (soap opera), secured the highest ratings last year and also established it as a trendsetter, prompting other stations to come up with similar programs.

Other awards for broadcast media went to Bali TV as Local TV of the Year and Hard Rock FM Jakarta as Radio of the Year.

Cakram Awards were also given to MACS 909 and DM Pratama as Advertising Agencies of the Year. Meanwhile, the honor for Event Organizer of the Year went to Deteksi Production, which was behind spectacular shows such as the ""A Mild Live Soundrenaline"" and ""Iwan Fals & Slank: Bersatu dalam Damai"" (United in Peace).

Cakram Awards founder and Editor-in-chief of Cakram Magazine, Gunawan Alif said the awards were first established in 1999 as an attempt to reinvigorate the advertising industry, which was then just recovering from the devastating impact of the monetary crisis. The magazine itself, established by Gunawan and the late Ken Sudarto and Paul Karmadi -- the founders of Matari advertising agency -- is the first Indonesian magazine to report exclusively on the national advertising scene.

Throughout the years, the Cakram Awards has established itself as -- and remains -- the only comprehensive parameter of media achievement in the country.

""It's become more and more recognized now,"" said Gunawan. ""Many institutions that have won Cakram Awards in the past now proudly list their Cakram Award achievements in their profiles.""

But the Awards is not without its flaws, to which Gunawan readily admits. The first few years when he and a small team of Cakram staff selected the winners, questions arose as to the Awards' bias and independence. In response, Gunawan started recruiting jurors from outside the magazine and who represented various walks of life in the media and communications industries.

For this year, Awards organizers collaborated with survey company MRI to come up with finalists in 20 categories, from which the jury picked the winners.

""We will keep working on improving the methodology,"" said Gunawan.

And making it more known to the general public wouldn't hurt, either.

""This is such an important award because of its comprehensive recognition and it's one of a kind,"" said advertising professional Djito Kasilo. ""So the organizers need to do more PR to involve the public more in the recognition and discussion of Cakram winners.""

The awards night could use some seeds of change itself. The ceremony managed to confuse most of the attendees because it was held at the Empire Grill, a revolving restaurant atop the Menara Imperium in Kuningan. The circular and mobile venue disoriented the guests, who needed time to find the stage where the awards were being given, especially when they were declared winners.

The only attraction was provided by the Overload Romance band, and probably the most memorable highlight for those present was when sinetron actress Maudy Koesnadi came onstage to receive the award for her absent husband, Eric Meijer, Vice President of Marketing at PT Telkomsel, who was named Marketing Person of the Year.

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