Lowokwaru (malangkota.go.id) – Esty Sulistya, a presenter from RRI Malang, has successfully become the champion in the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) Prizes 2024 after competing with 65 other participants. Esty received the award at the ABU Prizes 2024 Awards Night at the Ambassador Ballroom, Hilton Istanbul Bosphorus Hotel, Turkey, Tuesday (22/10/2024).
The Pro1 RRI Malang presenter whose full name is Etik Sulistyaningsih successfully became the first winner in the Radio On Air Personality category. This category competes in broadcasting skills, delivering messages, information gathering skills, word processing skills, presenting harmony, comfort, personality in broadcasts, ability to handle listeners, and ability to make sources comfortable in delivering messages.
"There are five criteria for judging the jury in this category, namely creativity, depth of presenter knowledge, ability to connect with listeners, voice quality and editorial understanding of a presenter," explained Esty when contacted via her cellphone, Friday (25/10/2024).
With the material entitled 'Melodies for Indonesia Children' or Melodies for Indonesian Children, Esty highlighted the crisis of children's songs in Indonesia in the last two decades, in terms of quality and quantity. She invited musicians, the music industry, parents, and the government to provide and invite Indonesian children to sing songs that can build the character and personality of Indonesian children.
"Children are the future of our nation, so it is fitting that we have many songs about love of the homeland, friendship, compassion, tolerance, and empathy," said Esty about the message she wanted to convey through the theme she chose.
A long process had to be gone through to become the winner. The woman who has been working as a broadcaster, presenter, and radio reporter for 25 years had to go through three stages of judging for selection at the Indonesian level, before being selected to represent Indonesia.
Esty had to compete with representatives from 69 RRI in Indonesia to choose the best five and then the best three were filtered to get supplies, new production and revisions, and then be selected to represent Indonesia.
"The process is long. The national selection is divided into stage 1, stage 2, and stage 3 to represent Indonesia. This year, Esty has the opportunity to represent Voice of Indonesia (VOI), the foreign broadcast channel RRI," he explained about the selection stage in Indonesia.
While the judging is at the international level, in 2024 60 pre-selection judges have the opportunity and challenge to select 342 works submitted by participants from 65 countries. The final judging of the ABU Prizes 2024 took place in Kuala Lumpur from 10-12 September 2024. "There were 18 judges from ABU member countries assessing 60 works of participants who were finalists in all categories, thank God I won in the Radio On Air Personality category," explained Esty.
President of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, Mehmet Zahid Sobaci, in his speech at the awards night stated that the participants of the 2024 ABU Prizes had increased in terms of the number and quality of the programs produced. "This year the number of participants has increased, the quality of the participants' production is also extraordinary. So the jury must carry out a very strict assessment to choose the winner," explained Zahid.
Meanwhile, responding to Esty Sulistya's victory, President Director of Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI) Ignatius Hendrasmo said that this victory is proof that RRI is taken into account at the international level with interesting and captivating programs for listeners. "This is proof that RRI's programs and broadcast style are taken into account at the international level, the programs are also interesting," said Hendrasmo.
The ABU Prizes event is part of the 61st ABU General Assembly series held on 61-18 October 23 in Istanbul, Turkey. ABU or the Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union was formed in 2024 as a non-profit professional association of broadcasting organizations. ABU currently has more than 1964 media from 240 countries in the Asia Pacific region. (say/yon)
