The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and online media. The awards were conceived by the National Association of Broadcasters in 1938 as the radio industry’s equivalent of the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...

s. Programs are recognized in seven categories: news, entertainment, documentaries, children's programming, education, interactive programming, and public service. Peabody Award winners include

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

and

television stations A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ear ...

, networks, online media, producing organizations, and individuals from around the world. Established in 1940 by a committee of the National Association of Broadcasters, the Peabody Award was created to honor excellence in radio broadcasting. It is the oldest major electronic media award in the United States. Final Peabody Award winners are selected unanimously by the program's Board of Jurors. Reflecting excellence in quality storytelling, rather than popularity or commercial success, Peabody Awards are distributed annually to 30 out of 60 finalists culled from more than 1,000 entries. Because submissions are accepted from a wide variety of sources and styles, deliberations seek "Excellence On Its Own Terms". Each entry is evaluated on the achievement of standards established within its own context. Entries, for which a fee ( for radio) is required, are self-selected by those making submissions.

History

In 1938, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in

radio broadcasting Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

. Committee member Lambdin Kay, public-service director for WSB radio in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...

, Georgia, at the time, is credited with creating the award, named for businessman and philanthropist George Foster Peabody, who donated the funds that made the awards possible. Fellow WSB employee Lessie Smithgall introduced Lambdin to John E. Drewry, of the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication The Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication is a constituent college of the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, United States. Established in 1915, Grady College offers undergraduate degrees in journalism, advertising, public re ...

, who endorsed the idea. The Peabody Award was established in 1940 with the Grady College of Journalism as its permanent home. The Peabody Awards were originally issued only for

programming, but

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

awards were introduced in 1948. In the late 1990s additional categories for material distributed via the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...

were added. Materials created solely for theatrical motion picture release are not eligible.

Peabody judging

The Peabody Awards judging process is unusually rigorous. Each year, more than 1,000 entries are evaluated by some 30 committees composed of a number of faculty, staff, and students from the

and other higher education institutions across the country. Each committee is charged with screening or listening to a small number of entries and delivering written recommendations to the Peabody Board of Jurors, a ~17-member panel of scholars, critics, and media-industry professionals.

Board members A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervise the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiza ...

discuss recommended entries as well as their own selections at intensive preliminary meetings in California and Texas. The Board convenes at the

in early April for final screenings and deliberations. Each entrant is judged on its own merit, and only unanimously selected programs receive a Peabody Award. For many years, there was no set number of awards issued. However, in 2016 the program instituted the Peabody 30, representing the best programs out of a field of 60 nominees. Prior to this, the all-time record for Peabody Award recipients in a single year was 46 in 2013.

Key people

* George Foster Peabody (1852–1938), namesake of the awards, was a highly successful investment banker who devoted much of his fortune to education and social enterprise. *Lambdin Kay was the awards chairman for The National Association of Broadcasters when he was asked to create a prize to honor the nation's premier radio programs and performances. *John E. Drewry (1902–1983) was the first dean of the

. He accepted the position of dean when it was created in 1940. That same year he helped Lambdin Kay, general manager of

's WSB Radio, create the Peabody Awards recognizing excellence in

broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began wi ...

. *Dr. Worth McDougald (1926–2007) served as Director of the Peabody Awards program from 1963 until his retirement in 1991. *Barry Sherman (1952–2000) was the Director of the George Foster Peabody Awards program at the

from 1991 until his death in 2000. * Horace Newcomb held the Lambdin Kay Chair for the Peabodys in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the

from 2001 to 2013. *

Jeffrey P. Jones Jeffrey P. Jones is executive director of the George Foster Peabody Awards and Lambdin Kay Chair for the Peabodys at the University of Georgia. Jones was appointed as only the fifth director of the program in July 2013. He is also Director of the P ...

succeeded Horace Newcomb in July 2013 as the Lambdin Kay Chair for the Peabodys in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the

Award announcements and ceremonies

Each spring, the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors announce award recipients for work released during the previous year. Traditionally, the winners' announcements have been made via a simple press release and/or a press conference. An April 2014 segment of ''

CBS This Morning ''CBS This Morning'' (''CTM'') is an American morning television program that aired on CBS from November 30, 1987, to October 29, 1999, and again from January 9, 2012, to September 6, 2021. The program was aired from Monday through Saturday. ...

'' included an announcement of 2013 Peabody winners."Ira Glass Will Host 73rd Annual Peabody Awards,"
from the Peabody Awards website (accessed 4/16/2015) In April 2015, the 2014 Peabodys were revealed over an 8-day period, with the entertainment-based recipients revealed on ABC's ''

Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. ...

''.Announcement of early 74th Peabody Award winners
from PeabodyAwards.com (accessed 4/15/2015) Formal presentation of the Peabody Awards is traditionally held in late May or early June. For many years, the awards were given during a luncheon in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The ceremony moved to a red carpet evening event for the first time on May 31, 2015, with Fred Armisen serving as host. Several famous names have served as Peabody Awards ceremony hosts over the years, among them Walter Cronkite, Lesley Stahl,

Jackie Gleason John Herbert Gleason (February 26, 1916June 24, 1987) was an American actor, comedian, writer, composer, and conductor known affectionately as "The Great One." Developing a style and characters from growing up in Brooklyn, New York, he was know ...

Jon Stewart Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz; November 28, 1962) is an American comedian, political commentator, and television host. He hosted '' The Daily Show'', a satirical news program on Comedy Central, from 1999 to 2015 and now hosts '' ...

, Morley Safer,

Craig Ferguson Craig Ferguson (born 17 May 1962) is a Scottish-born American comedian, actor, writer, and television host. He is best known for hosting the CBS late-night talk show '' The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson'' (2005–2014), for which he won ...

Larry King Larry King (born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger; November 19, 1933 – January 23, 2021) was an American television and radio host, whose awards included 2 Peabodys, an Emmy and 10 Cable ACE Awards. Over his career, he hosted over 50,000 interviews. ...

, and

Ira Glass Ira Jeffrey Glass (; born March 3, 1959) is an American public radio personality. He is the host and producer of the radio and television series ''This American Life'' and has participated in other NPR programs, including ''Morning Edition'', ' ...

. From 2014 to 2016, the Peabody Awards aired on a tape-delayed basis on the TV channel Pivot. On June 2, 2017, a television special of the 76th Annual Peabody Awards Ceremony was broadcast on both PBS and FUSION networks.

Peabody Awards Archive

The Peabody Awards Collection is the flagship of The Walter J. Brown Media Archive & Peabody Awards Collection. The archives are housed in the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries on the north campus of The University of Georgia. The mission of the Peabody Archive is to preserve, protect, and provide access to the moving image and sound materials that reflect the collective memory of broadcasting and the history of the state of

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

and its people. The collection contains nearly every entry for the first major broadcast award given in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. Entries began in 1940 for radio and 1948 for television, and at least 1,000 new entries are received every year—programs created by local, national, and international producers. The collection provides a cultural cross-section of television from its infancy to the present day, featuring news, documentary, entertainment, educational, and children's programming. Once judging is complete, all entries are moved to the Main Library for in-depth cataloging, access, and long-term preservation. In 2017 the Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia (BMA) and

WGBH WGBH may refer to: * WGBH Educational Foundation, based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States ** WGBH (FM), a public radio station at Boston, Massachusetts on 89.7 MHz owned by the WGBH Educational Foundation ** WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), ...

, on behalf of the

American Archive of Public Broadcasting The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) is a collaboration between the Library of Congress and WGBH Educational Foundation, founded through the efforts of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The AAPB is a national effort to digital ...

, were awarded a grant from the

National Historical Publications and Records Commission The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...

to digitize, preserve, and provide access to approximately 4,000 hours of public broadcasting programming nominated for a George Foster Peabody Award between 1941 and 1999. The full collection will eventually comprise 4,000 digitized hours of audio and video recordings from 230 local, state, and regional public broadcasting stations in 46 states as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.

References

External links

Peabody Awards official website
* * {{Peabody 1940 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state) American journalism awards American radio awards American television awards Awards established in 1940 Broadcast journalism Educational media awards Podcasting awards University of Georgia Web awards