March, 24, 2021
The Raigam Tele’es Secretariat proudly declares the 17th encounter of Raigam Tele’es, which will evaluate the tele-creations telecast over the TV channels in Sri Lanka during the year 2020. The grand award ceremony will be staged on 03rd July 2021 at the Nelum Pokuna Mahinda Rajapalse Auditorium, Colombo.
The “Nomination Evening” for the declaration and felicitation of nominees recommended for awards will take place on 04th June 2021 at Shangri-la Hotel, Colombo
Entries for the festival are now accepted.
Raigam Tele’es has embarked on the trend of acclaiming creations, immediately after the end of the year under review. Despite the impact of pandemic, we successfully concluded the Raigam Teles 2019 - in year 2020 as scheduled, which became the 1st and only tele / cinema awards ceremony held in the island in the year 2020. This time too, the Raigam Teles 2020, will be held with the least delay in the face of the current situation and also under the new norm.
Continuation of an award ceremony at the highest level for seventeen consecutive years, overcoming many challenges is a very special victory for us and we are pleased to see that today the Raigam Tele’es has become a very special event of all stakeholders of the industry. We share that happiness and the strength we have thus gained with the media and the general public and we gladly and proudly accept the challenge of organizing the “Awards Ceremony of the Nation” to encompass the whole of the tele-media.
As organizers of Raigam Tele’es we are always committed to provide a new experience to the audience while maintaining the values of the event. Raigam Tele’es has established a set of norms which are very strictly adhered to in all aspects of the event.
Evolution of Raigam Tele’es
Seventeen years ago Raigam Tele-awards Ceremony started as an awards ceremony for the tele-drama industry and later re-branded as Raigam Tele’es to appreciate all sectors of the television media which includes tele-dramas as well as other television programmes such as sports, children’s, political, news, documentary, reality and many other not forgetting technical and individual talents (the list of awards is attached hereto) under four main award categories.
Tele-drama Excellence Awards
Although the over-view of the Raigam Tele’es has been broadened, the Raigam Tele’es Secretariat has decided to keep the number of awards allocated for the tele-drama sector unchanged. Accordingly, this year too there will be number of awards for year’s best creating, acting, singing and technical talents of multi-episode tele-drama and single-episode tele-drama.
Television Media Excellence Awards
Today the most popular TV program is tele-drama, but most of the air time is occupied by other, different programs. The main responsibility of the TV media should be to telecast these programs targeting the education and entertainment needs of the audience with high quality material and updating viewers on various areas of interest. Therefore, with the hope of encouraging production of creative and high value programs to sharpen the minds and tastes of the general public a number of awards will be presented to best efforts in this category including news reading, news reporting, current affairs, educational, children’s, musical, reality, and political Programs. Awards for the best news reader and best presenter will be granted separately for each language Sinhala, English and Tamil.
Most Popular Awards
An opportunity has been allowed for thousands of television viewers to indicate their most preferred tele-drama, actor and the actress under this category through an SMS poll. Raigam pioneered the use of SMS to select the winners of popular awards. This time too, the general public will get the chance to use SMS to elect their choice of the most popular Actor, Actress, and Tele-drama.
In order to facilitate easy voting an updating viewer with latest news, a mobile app has been launched for Raigam Tele’es. This can be downloaded from Google play store. SMS voting will be opened from 04th June to 02nd July 2021. Telephone Nos. for SMS Poll will be published soon.
Most Viewed Television Programmes
Introducing a new category, Raigam Tele’es this time will honour the most viewed television programmes during the year 2020. Awards have been allocated for the most viewed tele-drama, most viewed television media programme and the most viewed news bulletin under this category. The winners will be selected on published ratings and research based data.
Honouring the pioneers and artists who had worked hard for the development of the television sector is one of the special events of the Raigam Tele’es. During the past Raigam Tele’es has honoured many senior artists, technicians and selected personalities who were instrumental in introducing television media in our country.
In 2007, ‘PRATHIBHA PRABHA’ life time awards scheme was introduced to honour and appreciate the contribution and achievement of most prominent personalities who contributed to build and develop the industry. The “Poetess of Sinhala Cinema” - Mrs. Sumithra Peiries have been honoured under this awards scheme at the last ceremony.
Appreciation TV Channels
Raigam Tele’es is the only event in Sri Lanka which uses a clear-cut and a transparent scheme to appreciate the contribution of TV Channels.
The TV Channel which secures most number of awards under the Tele-drama Excellence category will be honoured as the “Tele-drama Channel of the Year” whilst the TV Channel which secures most number of awards under the Television Media Excellence category will be honoured as the “Television Media Channel of the Year”.
The TV Channel which secures the most number of awards in total at the ceremony will be honoured as the “TV Channel of the Year”.
Raigam Tele’es pioneered the concept of declaration and felicitation of the nominees recommended for awards at a grand ceremony prior to the final event making a revolutionary change in award ceremony culture in Sri Lanka. This “Nominations Evening” has been well accepted by the industry as it provides an opportunity to felicitate all the nominees moving with international trends.
This year the Raigam Tele’es “Nomination Evening” will be held on a grander scale on 04th June 2021 at the Shangrilla Hotel in Colombo.
The awards ceremony is organized in the most glorious fashion with utmost attention to detail while preserving the dignity of the event. As usual, the Ceremony receives unprecedented state patronage. No doubts that this night will be a memorable one indeed when everyone connected to the TV industry meet with each other. Only the invitees will be privileged to witnessing the show in its full glory. The event will be telecast later on main TV Channels.
The Jury
The Panel of Judges consists of ten members and most of them have past experience in similar capacity. This time the Chairman of the panel is Mr. Buddadasa Galapattie, who is a well-known personality in the field of media, literacy and arts. Other members are Mr. Ravindra Guruge, Prof. Ariyarathne Kaluarchchi, renowned cinematographer Mr. Jayanth Gunawardhena, renowned film critic Mr. Gunasiri Silva, Senior Lecturer Hansamala Ritigahapola, Music Director Ranga Dasanayake, Prof. Ajantha Hapuarachchi, well–known Journalist Aruna Gunarathne. Further a well-known media personality Mr. Abdul Hameed will perform as special advisor in the Tamil medium.
Rewards and Benefits
Raigam Telees granted an annual life insurance coverage of Rs. 1,000,000/- and a hospitalization insurance cover of Rs.100,000/- for all the artists honoured at the event including nominees. This is the only experience in Sri Lanka with such a benefit granted for all the nominees in a film or tele festival.
Apart from that this year too, the winners of the Raigam Tele'es will receive cash prizes in exceeding of Rs. 2.5 million.
We appreciate the tremendous support of Sampath Bank as the Partner of Raigam Tele’es for the past 10 years and also grateful to the Mobitel (Pvt) Limited, for their generous sponsorship for the Nomination Evening.
Creations eligible for evaluation for awards at the Raigam Tele’es 2020 are as follows.
Entries for the Ceremony
Entries for Raigam Tele’es 2020 are now accepted by the Raigam Tele’es Secretariat and will be closed on 10th of April 2021. Those who are expecting to apply for the awards are kindly requested to contact Raigam Tele’es Secretariat on 0707 061602/ 0707 061508 immediately.
Application forms can be obtained from respective TV channels, contacting above telephone numbers or visiting the official web site www.raigamtelees.lk
Applications together with tele creations stored on CD or DVD using VOB or Mpeg formats can be handed over to the Raigam Tele’es Counters at following addresses.
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