Among prizes for electronic media – radio awards, television awards, interactive and new media awards – The George Foster Peabody Awards are considered the most prestigious. Founded in 1940, the Peabody is the also the oldest electronic media award in the world, recognizing excellence, distinguished achievement, and meritorious public service. The first radio awards were presented in 1941, for work completed in 1940. The first television awards were presented in 1948, the first cable television awards in 1981, and the first web site awards in 2003. Honoring content from large broadcast networks to tiny online outlets, from popular entertainment programs to independently produced documentaries, and all types in between, the Peabody Awards seek out "excellence on its own terms." The awards are administered by the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
The televison entries series of the Peabody Awards include entry forms, scrapbooks, photographs, abstracts, scripts, and press kits documenting the majority of the entries from 1947 to 2011. Each entry includes the broadcaster, city and state, title of the program, and a description of the contents of the submission.
The George Foster Peabody Awards collection is organized into three series: radio entries, television entries, and administrative files.
The television entries are arranged chronologically by submission year and submission catagory thereunder. The submission catagories are children and youth (CYT), education (EDT), entertainment (ENT), news (NWT), promotion of international understanding (PRT), and public service (PST).
George Foster Peabody Awards Collection, Series 2. Television Entries, ms3000, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, The University of Georgia Libraries.
Related collections in this repository: George Foster Peabody Awards Collection, Series 1: Radio Entries and Series 3: Office Files.
The Peabody Awards Media Collection consists of over 90,000 titles, with radio programs dating from 1940 and television from 1948. There are radio transcription discs, audiotape, audiocassettes, 16mm kinescopes and prints, 2" videoreels, videocassettes, and websites. Many of the programs in the collection may be the only surviving copies of the work, especially in the case of local radio and television broadcasting. These are all original archival materials. Reference, or "user" copies, are available for much of the collection for use in the University of Georgia Libraries Media Department or at the Special Collections Library.