Oasis Fm – Tenerife's official British radio station

Tenerife Entertainment Awards 2007 - 15.06.2007
The following is an email received from Margaret Bryant in relation to the recent Tenerife Entertainment Awards and response from Chris Elkington MD – EmCan Media. I have lived on this Island for 23 years and I have been asked so many times who nominates all the entertainers for the Tenerife Entertainment Awards. Why is it always the same faces over & over again? Why not some of the other better talent that is around? What about all the other people who are never mentioned and who are excellent artists, alot of them are far better than alot of the people actually nominated, and the nominated people will know that alot of these are actually better than themselves. I did hear that Nick Page & Tanyia Travero weren't nominated because they had been off the Island, but last year Maxine Jack was off the island & came back for this show for which she was nominated. Congratulations for winning it this year Max. I know that I have missed out many other names, I can't remember all of them, but this list includes so many names that other people have asked why they weren't nominated. So sorry to those I've forgotten. Trusting you will print this article, just to let everyone know that these & others should have had a fighting chance. I have been to so many of these award do's but each one seems to be fixed & clicky. For the record, my first act, in my bar on this island was Danny Day and to this day he is still one of the best. I want this to go to print, because I am so sick of people complaining to me saying something should be done, as they think each year it is so unfair that other good artists do not get a chance. Reply from Chris Elkington, MD – EmCan Media Hi Margaret, Thanks for your letter which Ruth Summers from the Canarian Weekly passed onto me so I could reply to you. I felt having read it that there are certain points that I needed to clarify so that there are no misunderstandings regarding the awards and the processes leading to the eventual winners. 1. ‘I have been asked so many times who nominates all the entertainers for the Tenerife Entertainment Awards. Why is it always the same faces over & over again?’ I have personally been involved with the three David Alexander Awards in the 90’s and the two TEA’s in the last two years, which have involved three different nomination and voting processes. Originally for the David Alexander Awards, no nominations were announced and it was straight voting for any act on slips of paper with the public deciding which category an act fitted into, which as you can imagine led to chaos and as Sandy wrote in the Paper, led to complaints due to the possibility of acts taking voting slips to bars with them. Last year the public sent a text to nominate an act for a category, then after the nominations were announced, were asked to text again to actually vote for the act, which worked fine, but then led to complaints that the cost involved to text twice gets to high. This is why this year we implemented a nominations panel of 20, made up of press, agencies, and entertainment related figures, to individually nominate their top 5 acts in each category from a complete list of all acts (including those you have listed below) already categorized to avoid confusion. From this the top 5 in each category formed the nominations. Two things can be derived from this – firstly that over 5 awards with three different processes some of the same acts did come out and secondly that this year had in total more votes than any other year and that the text process prevents duplication and manipulation. 2. ‘Why not some of the other better talent that is around?’ This is a point I wanted to ask you – better in whose opinion? The quality of the acts and who’s better than who is a very personal point of view, so although one person may think so…..others may not. 3. ‘I did hear that Nick Page & Tanyia Travero weren't nominated because they had been off the Island, but last year Maxine Jack was off the island & came back for this show for which she was nominated.’ To clarify this point is very simple, Nick (I must say one of my personal favourites) and Tanya were away for a year in the UK over the period that the awards apply, even though yes they were here for the event. Maxine Jack was here for the year leading up to the announcement of the awards having left just as they were announced to return to Scotland, and yes came over for the event, which she enjoyed so much it made her realise how much she missed the island, and subsequently moved back. For the record, a number of acts have asked us why they weren’t nominated, which is not for me to answer as I’m not on the nominations panel, but the simple fact is they didn’t receive enough nominations. All the acts you have listed were on the categories list (with the exception of Nick and Tanya), and some of them in two categories, for example Leeway was in the compere and comedy category as he also does his Chubby Brown show, and Bob Preston was in the compere and radio category, giving all the acts a fighting chance. I would also like to comment on the fact that you state these events ‘seem to be fixed and clicky’, we have made all information available for anyone to see regarding the nominations, text votes, voting slips for best group on the day, and the categories list, so that anyone can see any aspect of the awards and ascertain that they are fair. Also, I think its whole island that is clicky – not the Tenerife Entertainment Awards, but that’s my opinion. Finally I am quite happy that anyone that has a complaint, observation, suggestion or opinion about the awards in general or how to improve them, contacts me on 639 101 311 or at chris@emcan-media.com to put forward their point. Let’s not forget the TEA’s were only reformed in 2006 to support the entertainment scene in Tenerife, which according to the acts on the circuit ‘was dying.’ If the general opinion between the acts the awards are there for, is that the scene would be better off without them, then I as the organiser would be more than happy to stop them as they take up a huge amount of time and effort to monitor, run, produce, and organise to get a show as was seen this year. I hope this answers your questions and clears up a few points.