RT Wins People`s Voice Prize of Int’l Internet Excellence Webby Awards

RT broadcaster won the People`s Voice award with over 40 percent of the votes secured in the final round of the prestigious Webby Awards honoring excellence on the Internet, the channel’s press service said Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – RT competed in the News & Information category against BBC News, NBC News & Nightly News, ABC News and The New York Times.

"To be nominated in the first place means we're doing things right. To win the People's Voice award – and to win it by a landslide – means our community is engaged and close to us. And we thank every person who voted and brought this victory!" Kirill Karnovich-Valua, RT’s head of online projects, stated.

RT’s digital projects, in particular the channel’s accounts on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Soundcloud and Coub platforms as well as RT Play platform have been nominated by the Webby Awards.

The total number of views of RT's YouTube account exceeded 3.3 billion, according to the press service. RT provides interactive content with an optimized RT News mobile app, RT Plugin app that creates a social network for the audience, as well as the Periscope live-streaming app. In addition, RT was one of the first media outlets in the world that began to produce news content in a 360-video (VR) format and to launch a special page on Facebook for panoramic video. RT Ruptly Stringer Mobile app allows anyone with a smartphone to instantly send a video from the scene to the editorial office.

"We have an incredibly talented social media team which gets the full credit for the victory. Our team is multi-task – social media is their environment. The guys are as comfortable with Twitter or YouTube as they are with 360 vids, GIFs, VR and many other trends and formats. Now RT's social media strategy is recognized on the very top Webby level. So, hats off to the team," Ivor Crotty, RT’s head of social media group, stressed.

The prizes in various nominations will be handed over to the winners in New York on May 16 at a 20th anniversary edition of the contest.