Al Jazeera triumphs at Freesat Awards 2011

Al Jazeera English was again named 'Best News Channel of the Year' at the third annual Freesat Awards, with the channel also picking up a new award for its news coverage.

The Qatar-based news channel beat the BBC News channel, CNBC, NHK World and France TV to the top news channel accolade at a ceremony held last night in London.

Al Jazeera English also scooped the new category of 'News Event Coverage of the Year' for its reporting on the 'Arab Awakening' uprisings across the Middle East.

Buoyed by The X Factor and Downton Abbey, 'Best Entertainment Channel' went to ITV1 ahead of digital sister channel ITV2, BBC Three and E4, while 'Best Music Channel' was again given to urban music network Flava.

Vintage TV was a very popular choice as 'Best Themed Channel', and QVC took home the prize for 'Best Shopping Channel'. 'Best Digital Radio Channel' was awarded to Absolute Radio.

The BBC's CBBC won the 'Best Children's Channel' category ahead of the corporation's own Cbeebies, along with Tiny Pop and Milkshake. CBBC also scooped the new category of 'Best Children's Programme Initiative' for its Live N Deadly programme.

'Best Small Entertainment Channel of the Year' went to CBS Reality, while new category 'Audience Impact Award' - celebrating shows and channels that engage with their audience on multiple platforms - went to E4 for its campaign for the new series of Misfits.

In the viewer-voted categories, shopping channel Create And Craft was named 'TV Channel Of The Year' and Planet Rock again picked up 'Radio Station Of The Year'.

Freesat managing director Emma Scott said: "Our awards have been a wonderful celebration of the diverse, high-quality programming that keeps our audience entertained and informed. I'd like to congratulate the winners as we look forward to bringing viewers even more exciting channels and services in the future."

The awards, which recognise excellence in channels and radio stations available on the Freesat platform, were handed out at a ceremony in London hosted by comedian Russell Kane.

In a speech before the awards, Scott also indicated that the satellite platform will announce a "next generation" of Freesat set top boxes later in the year, calling on the public to "watch this space".