KIT NEWS SERVICE WINS NATIONAL MEDIA AWARD

THE FIRST on-demand news service to be launched on KIT, the East Yorkshire broadband television service from Kingston Communications, has picked up a national award for breaking new ground.
Calendar News Extra, produced by Yorkshire Television's Hull-based newsteam, has won the Technical Innovation category at the BT National Media Awards.
Launched last autumn, the weekday local news bulletin for Hull and East Yorkshire is available free to more than 9000 customers on KIT's Local Link. YTV has also expanded its service to produce a what's on slot.
KIT delivers 60 channels of digital television, TV Internet, Email, Home Shopping, Video-On-Demand and Local Link - a service of local news/ community information and shops and services - down ordinary telephone lines, via a set-top box to a standard television set without affecting the telephone line. KIT was itself commercially launched in September 2000.
The BT Award for Technical Innovation, newly introduced this year, aims to recognise the rapid and wide-ranging impact that new technology is having across the industry.
Yorkshire Television's Calendar News Extra scooped the award as judges commented that it makes a serious attempt to exploit technological change to provide a truly local, audience-driven news service.
They said the extra potential for customized news, linked to online delivery, is also being imaginatively developed.
Yorkshire Television's Director of Programmes, Mike Best, said: "I genuinely believe that in Calendar News Extra, YTV and KIT are providing a news service that reflects the future of the industry - giving viewers the service when they want it, rather than when they are told they can have it."