MANILA, Philippines - Filipino international broadcast journalist Rico Hizon of BBC World News took home the Highly Commended Award in the Best News Anchor/Presenter Category in the recently-concluded 2014 Asian Television Awards at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.
Rico was the only Filipino news anchor nominated in the category. The other nominees were Martin Soong and Sri Jegarajah of CNBC Asia, Angie Lau of Bloomberg, Barkha Dutt from India’s New Delhi Television Limited and Rajdeep Sardesai from India’s TV18 CNN-IBN who won the award.
Now on his 12th year with international news channel BBC World News, Rico was recognized for his work in Newsday. He also anchors the business-oriented program Asia Business Report. Both news shows are broadcast to over 350 million households worldwide.
Rico, a proud Pinoy, attributes much of his success to BBC News, stating, “The BBC’s rigorous training and discipline has taught me to maintain the highest level of editorial standards and allows me to uphold the key principles of impartiality, accuracy and fairness.”
Rico is the only Filipino male broadcast journalist to anchor for two of the world’s biggest news networks BBC World News and CNBC Business News.
BBC World News also took home accolades in the Best Single News Story/Report category with Jonathan Head winning for his report On the Frontline of the Bangkok Protests, while Damian Gramaticas and his story Tibetan Self-Immolations was Highly Commended.