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By Kim Cretors
kcretors@uga.edu
For the first time in the program’s 60-year history, the Peabody Awards presentation ceremony will air on television. Georgia Public Television will broadcast the 59th Peabody Awards on Aug. 23 at 8 p.m. The May ceremony was held at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and was hosted by Matt Lauer, co-anchor of NBC’s Today show.
The Peabody Awards, administered by UGA’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, are considered the most sought-after honor in the broadcast industry. From its headquarters in Atlanta, GPTV delivers PBS and local programming to every county in the state through its nine-station network; each week, more than four million people watch GPTV.
Featured in the Aug. 23 broadcast are clips from the 36 winning programs--chosen from almost 1,300 submissions--along with the acceptance remarks from the award recipients. Among the winners taking the stage at the Waldorf are David Chase, executive producer of HBO’s The Sopranos; film documentarian and three-time Peabody winner Ken Burns, accepting for Not for Ourselves Alone; ABC News anchor Peter Jennings for coverage of the turn of the millennium; and the executive producers of NBC’s hit drama The West Wing. Gov. Roy Barnes and UGA President Michael F. Adams also appear.
Following the Aug. 23 broadcast, GPTV will air all nine of the Peabody winners that were produced by or aired on PBS, including I’ll Make Me a World: A Century of African-American Arts, Facing the Truth with Bill Moyers and The Life of Birds by Sir David Attenborough. In fact, more Peabody-winning programs aired on PBS than on any other network or cable system.
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