Only one series from a broadcast television network has been recognized in the 75th Annual Entertainment & Children’s Programming Peabody Awards. That honor goes to ABC’s black-ish, the Anthony Anderson-led comedy that doesn’t shy away from hot topics such as race, police brutality and gun violence.
The organization announced its honorees Friday morning on the Today show. Netflix is the big winner with Beasts of No Nation, Marvel’s Jessica Jones and Master of None being acknowledged as the year’s best. The Leftovers (HBO), Transparent (Amazon), Wolf Hall (PBS), Deutschland 83 (SundanceTV) were also recognized.
The committee also celebrated the critically acclaimed USA’s MR. ROBOT and Lifetime’s UnReal.
UK’s children show, Katie Morag (Cbeebies), rounded up the eleven winners of the prestigious awards.
The Peabody Awards are an important honor in media and recognize excellence in radio, TV and the blogosphere. They were created by the National Association of Broadcasters who – after realizing that there was no equivalent for the Pulitzer Prize in radio – formed a committee to establish a prestigious award for excellence in broadcasting.
The Peabody Awards started acknowledging television programs in 1948, and included cable television by 1981.
The Peabody committee states, “As the possibilities for storytelling multiply, the Peabody Awards will continue to draw attention to stories that matter in electronic media. We look toward the new forms of storytelling that will arise as we move deeper into the digital age.”
It’s remarkable to see that an organization of such prestige keeps with the times and doesn’t remain stagnant and narrow-minded.
In order for shows to be considered for the awards they had to be released between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2015. This means that some great shows we’ve seen this year, such as The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (released on February 2, 2016 on FX), Full Frontal With Samantha Bee (released on February 8, 2016 on TBS), The Americans (season 4 released on March 16, 2016 on FX) and American Crime (season 2 released on January 6, 2016 on ABC), were not eligible for the award. We sure hope we’ll see them being honored in next year’s Peabody Awards.