ITV sweeps board with 11 gongs at National TV Awards

by Sam Matthews,, Brand Republic 27-Oct-04, 08:30

LONDON - ITV has cleaned up at the 10th annual National Television Awards last night, winning 11 of the coveted gongs including three for 'Coronation Street' while BBC One's 'EastEnders' left empty-handed for the first time.

'Coronation Street', the nation's most watched soap with audiences of more than 10m, won the Best Newcomer, Best Actress and Best Serial Drama awards.

Sam Aston, aged 11, who plays Chesney Brown on the hit ITV soap, fought off competition from 'EastEnders', 'Emmerdale' and 'Foyle's War' to win Best Newcomer. His colleague Suranne Jones, 25, who plays feisty Karen McDonald on the hit soap won Best Actress.

'Coronation Street' picked up the most coveted award, Most Popular Serial Drama, beating 'EastEnders', 'Emmerdale' and 'Hollyoaks'.

It was a dismal performance for the BBC One soap 'EastEnders', which last year dominated the awards, picking up four gongs for Most Popular Serial Drama, Jessie Wallace for Most Popular Actress, Shane Richie for Most Popular Actor and Nigel Harman as Most Popular Newcomer.

In a double blow to the BBC, the corporation picked up only one gong, for 'Little Britain' as Most Popular Comedy Programme.

ITV's 'Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway' won the Most Popular Entertainment Programme and the Geordie duo also picked up Most Popular Entertainment Presenter between them.

Other ITV winners include 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?', 'This Morning', 'The Bill' and 'A Touch of Frost' actor David Jason and 'Life Begins' actress Caroline Quentin.

'Big Brother' and 'Wife Swap' picked up Most Popular Reality Programme and Most Popular Factual Programme respectively for Channel 4.

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