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    A&E, Big Fish, Brent Montgomery Among Winners At Inaugural NPACT Impact Awards

    By SHOOTUpdated:No Comments3131 Views
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    Brent Montgomery won NPACT’s first Inspiration Award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction.
    SANTA MONICA, Calif. --

    NPACT, the entertainment trade association dedicated to serving the producers of non-fiction entertainment content, held its first annual NPACT Impact Awards on Monday night (6/4) at the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica, with A&E scoring a pair of honors–Network of the Year and Network Development Executive of the Year. The latter went to A&E’s Elaine Frontain Bryant. Meanwhile, for the top Network award, A&E topped a field which also included Bravo, History, Investigation Discovery (ID), National Geographic, Netflix and Oxygen.

    Created to celebrate the impact of nonfiction content and the people who make it, the NPACT Impact Awards also honored Big Fish Entertainment as Production Company of the Year, WME as Agency of the Year, and David O’Connell of Bravo/Oxygen as Network Production Exec of the Year.

    Additionally, for his work championing the nonfiction industry and support of the production community, award-winning producer and entrepreneur Brent Montgomery received NPACT’s first Inspiration Award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction.
     
    Montgomery began his career as a producer, working on series like The Bachelor and Blind Date, before launching his own Leftfield Pictures. He sold his first series in 2008 and created the behemoth hit Pawn Stars for History the following year. Leveraging that success, he built super-indie production house Leftfield Entertainment, which was acquired by ITV in 2014; in 2015, Montgomery was named CEO of ITV America. Earlier this year, he stepped down from his post to return to his creative and entrepreneurial roots, founding new media and marketing venture Wheelhouse Entertainment, where he currently serves as CEO. Montgomery was a founding member of the Nonfiction Producers Association (NPA), which merged in 2017 with TV trade group PactUS to create NPACT.
     
    Said NPACT general manager John Ford, “It’s been four years since eight maverick producers decided to put their money where their mouths are and launch the first-ever trade organization dedicated to growing and nurturing the nonfiction TV production industry (NPA, the Nonfiction Producers Association, which in 2017 merged with pactUS to form NPACT). Now–more than 100 member companies strong–we felt the time was right for the creative voice of the industry to thank and celebrate the people whose talent, hard work and commitment keep our business thriving. From documentary and reality to competition and talk, nonfiction is a major part of the entertainment landscape, and is only getting bigger.”

    Comedian, actor and TV host Bob Saget emceed the NPACT Impact Award proceedings.

    Here’s a rundown of the evening’s winners:

    Network of the Year
    A&E
     
    Agency of the Year
    WME
     
    Production Company of the Year
    Big Fish Entertainment

    Network Development Executive of the Year
    Elaine Frontain Bryant (A&E)
     
    Network Production Executive of the Year
    David O’Connell (Bravo/Oxygen)

    Inspiration Award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction
    Brent Montgomery

    Category:News
    Tags:A+EBig Fish EntertainmentNPACTNPACT Impact Awards



    Growth Brings Growing Pains–and Bots–To Bluesky

    Sunday, December 22, 2024

    Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk's X, which they view as increasingly leaning too far to the right given its owner's support of President-elect Donald Trump, or wanting an alternative to Meta's Threads and its algorithms.

    The platform grew out of the company then known as Twitter, championed by its former CEO Jack Dorsey. Its decentralized approach to social networking was eventually intended to replace Twitter's core mechanic. That's unlikely now that the two companies have parted ways. But Bluesky's growth trajectory — with a user base that has more than doubled since October — could make it a serious competitor to other social platforms.

    But with growth comes growing pains. It's not just human users who've been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed to create partisan division or direct users to junk websites.

    The skyrocketing user base — now surpassing 25 million — is the biggest test yet for a relatively young platform that has branded itself as a social media alternative free of the problems plaguing its competitors. According to research firm Similarweb, Bluesky added 7.6 million monthly active app users on iOS and Android in November, an increase of 295.4% since October. It also saw 56.2 million desktop and mobile web visits, in the same period, up 189% from October.

    Besides the U.S. elections, Bluesky also got a boost when X was briefly banned in Brazil.

    "They got this spike in attention, they've crossed the threshold where it is now worth it for people to flood the platform with spam," said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University and a member of Issue One's... Read More

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