Winners announced for the 2023 Venice TV Award

The winners of this year’s Venice TV Award have been announced after the world’s best television content competed for the event’s coveted Gold Medals. 

Taking place two weeks after the Venice Film Festival, the jury met in the historic city to celebrate the year´s television masterpieces. The Award is supported by the International Music + Media Centre [IMZ], the European Group of Television Advertising [egta], and the Association of Commercial TV [ACT].

The jury for the awards is made up of leading international TV experts who convene to honor the companies and individuals responsible for creating television masterpieces across 19 categories: TV Series, TV Movie, Performing Arts, Documentary, Light Entertainment, News, Program Promotion, Branded Entertainment, Sports, Children/Youth, Comedy, Reality TV, Technology/Innovation, Cross-Platform, Telenovela, Animation, Direction, Cinematography, New Talent. 

Above: Oussekine, a Disney+ France production, picked up the Gold Medal in TV Series.

This yeat it was the work of the BBC that most captured the attention of the judges, with the broadcaster securing a total of three Gold Medals. The corporation won top honours in TV Film, for Life and Death in the Warehouse, a collection of real-life stories based on four years of research in the distribution centres of online shopping companies.

In the Reality TV category, the BBC picked up a Gold Medal for The Traitors, a psychological adventure centred on betrayal and deceit, which was produced by Studio Lambert Productions. The BBC’s third gold came in Documentary, for Mariupol: The People's Story, a feature length film produced by Top Hat Productions which tells the story of the Ukrainian city through the eyes of those living there during the war.

Oussekine, a Disney+ France production, picked up the Gold Medal in TV Series. The four-episode show portrays a tragic, real-life event that saw 22-year-old Malik Oussekine assasinated by police in 1980s Paris, something which deeply impacted French society, and which became a symbol of police violence. Disney+ also triumphed in the Animation category with Star Wars: Visions - I Am Your Mother, produced by Lucas Film and Aardman Productions.

AppleTV+ and NHK Japan each matched Disney+ by earning two Gold Medals of their own. Apple in the Comedy category, with Shrinking, featuring Jason Segel as a grieving therapist who begins to defy conventional norms, and in the Children/Youth category, for Jane, a series led by a young girl whose character is inspired by famed scientist Dr. Jane Goodall.

NHK Japan earned its two Gold Medals for The Moment: How Sports Changed The World, and Nature’s Hidden Miracles Episode 1; The Secret Life of Plants, which won in the Sport and Technology/Innovation categories respectively.