Fresno's CMAC Wins Eight Regional WAVE Awards for Community Media Excellence

Fresno's Community Media Access Collaborative swept eight awards at the 2026 Western Access Video Excellence Awards, a regional competition that draws entries from Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada and New Mexico and is organized by the Alliance for Community Media West Region.

The WAVE Awards recognize excellence in public, educational and community media, honoring work from student filmmakers to veteran community producers. CMAC's haul stood out not just for its volume but for what it revealed about the organization's pipeline: half of the eight award-winning producers came directly out of CMAC's own training programs, including the Youth Voices program and the multi-nominated Fresno Art Beat project.

"Seeing our community recognized at the WAVE Awards directly reflects CMAC's mission to empower local voices," said CMAC Executive Director Bryan Harley. "Our WAVE winners reflect the spirit of the Central Valley and we are so proud of each and every one of them."

Among the highlighted winners were Tony Imperatrice and Claudio Laso, who took home the Experimental (All Producers) award for "Cassini," a film chronicling NASA's Cassini mission that features an original musical score. The project exemplifies the range of work CMAC producers have brought to regional attention, blending scientific subject matter with original composition in a format that earned top recognition across a six-state field.

The Fresno Art Beat project, described by CMAC as multi-nominated, added to the organization's regional footprint, though the full list of categories and individual winners across all eight awards was not released in detail.

For an organization rooted in giving Central Valley residents access to media production tools and training, the sweep underscores a longer arc: the students and community members who cycle through CMAC's programs are now competing and winning alongside experienced producers across the West.