AIDS at 25

From darkness came light. Cable Positive’s 5th annual POP awards Mon at IFC Center coincided with the 25th anniversary of the first CDC reports of AIDS symptoms. Yet the exemplary AIDS/HIV-related programs and PSAs on display made it clear that cable programmers are doing their best to make sure the pandemic won’t exist 25 more years. In addition to winning network of the year, MTV won for best newsmagazine and PSA campaign. The Viacom family did well, too, with Logo winning for news coverage and original series ("Noah’s Arc," whose creator said it was conceived to be entered into the POP awards), Viacom winning for PSA and BET grabbing awards for original film and special programming. A&E won best biographical program for an Elton John show and Discovery Times won best doc for "On The Frontlines of AIDS." New this year, awards were given to Spanish language PSAs and shows; presented by Rosie Perez, they went to Telemundo and Univision, respectively. Props to Josh Sapan and Rainbow for being excellent hosts. — BET will premiere 25 PSAs on HIV/AIDS this week, then make the spots available to cable operators later this month. The "Everyday Heroes" ads profile African-American HIV/AIDS activists. BET will follow up its PSA blitz with the latest entry in its AIDS film competition June 25, pre-and post-show "BET Awards" segments June 27 and a fall doc on HIV/AIDS in the hip-hop community. (CableWorld’s Simon Applebaum) — MTV and the Kaiser Family Foundation-in conjunction with NASTAD, iFilm and WebMD-introduced "think HIV," a multi-platform initiative to foster dialogue and youth engagement on HIV/AIDS. Included will be an online community, a documentary and a vlogging competition.