Although it was an honor to be an Emmy finalist, the CNN interactive television project I led for Dish Network called CNN Enhanced lost out to the entry from TiVo. Having never won an Emmy, Tivo was announced as the 2006 Emmy Award for outstanding achievement in enhanced television programming. This year’s Interactive Television Emmy Awards recognize original interactive television programming content, applications and services that have been deployed in the United States between June 1, 2005 and May 31, 2006 and that have demonstrated creative excellence.

Other finalists include AOL Music on Demand and DirecTV Interactive Sports. The awards will be presented at the Creative Arts Awards Ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, August 19.

And while I won’t be getting a statue,  I did take home a nice certificate for our project. As a special bonus, I was able to meet both Julie Brown (of Earth Girls are Easy and many other flicks) who was attending the AFI event with Richard Cardran of ZeTools and Sharon Lawrence (of NYPD Blue fame) who was the lead on one of the AFI’s recent Digital Content Lab projects.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the groundbreaking business model shown by ABC was also honored in the new broadband category by the Academy. Their full-length, ad-supported video player (designed by the smart team at Schematic) was simple and elegant. There was also coverage on Engadget and Gizmodo – take a look there for more info.