This is what a peabody award is about:
--------------------------------------------------
source:
www.peabody.uga.edu/about/About the Peabody Awards
George Foster Peabody Awards
The George Foster Peabody Awards were first awarded in 1941 for radio programs broadcast in 1940. The awards recognize distinguished achievement and meritorious service by radio and television networks, stations, producing organizations, cable television organizations and individuals. They perpetuate the memory of the banker-philanthropist whose name they bear. The awards program is administered by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. Selection is made by the Peabody Board following review by special screening committees of faculty, students and staff.
Entries may be submitted by any person or organization wishing to direct the attention of the Peabody Board to a meritorious program, series, individual or organization. In its selections, the Board will not necessarily be restricted to those programs entered or recommended by the faculty, but may consider reports of meritorious service developed from other sources and may, on its own initiative, select a program, station or individual for an award.
While the intent of the Peabody Awards is to recognize outstanding achievement in broadcasting and cable, the competition is open to entries produced for alternative distribution, including corporate, educational, home-video release, CD-ROM and World Wide Web. In general, non-broadcast or non-cable entries should be publicly available and part of an overall broadcast or cable enterprise. Programs produced and intended for theatrical motion picture exhibition are not eligible.
History of the Peabody awards
Lassie a 1955 winner
The National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to establish a Pulitzer Prize for radio. One member of the committee, Lambdin Kay, was a long-time manager of WSB Radio in Atlanta. Nicknamed the Little Colonel, Kay became a champion of the awards program and made it his special project.
Roone Arledge
Basing his concept on the Pulitzer program administered at Columbia University, Kay approached John E. Drewry, dean of the Grady School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, about sponsoring the project. By 1940 the awards plan had been endorsed by the NAB and the Board of Regents of the University of Georgia.
The awards program was named in honor of George Foster Peabody, a native Georgian, industrialist, financier and major benefactor of the university. His daughter, Marjorie Peabody Waite, served on the first Advisory Board and commissioned the design of the famous bronze medallion.
The first awards, for radio programs broadcast in 1940, were presented at a banquet at the Commodore Hotel in New York on March 29, 1941. The ceremony was broadcast live nationwide from 10:15 p.m. until 10:45 p.m. on CBS and included addresses by CBS founder and chairman William S. Paley and noted reporter Elmer Davis, the recipient of the first personal Peabody Award.
George Foster Peabody
Television programs first received awards in 1948. Early television winners included programs featuring Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and Howdy Doody, NBC and Burr Tillstrom for "Kukla, Fran and Ollie," Ed Sullivan, and Edward R. Murrow for his "See It Now" series. Cable television was first recognized in 1981 when Home Box Office and Ms. Magazine won for "She's Nobody's Baby: A History of American Women in the 20th Century."
Personal Peabody Award winners over the years have included Rod Serling, Walter Cronkite, Orson Welles, Studs Terkel, Charles Kurault, Norman Lear, Pauline Fredrick, Barbra Streisand, Oprah Winfrey and Christiane Amanpour. In addition to broadcast entertainers and reporters, individual winners have included former FCC Chairman Newton Minow for castigating the industry for being a vast wasteland; rock musician Bob Geldof for organizing Live Aid, the massive fund-raising effort on behalf of victims of starvation in Africa; and investigative reporter Carol Marin for taking a stand against the tide of sensationalism in television news.
Today the George Foster Peabody Awards are often cited as the most prestigious awards in electronic media. Each year, from more than one thousand entries, the Peabody Board selects outstanding works exhibiting excellence, distinguished achievement, and meritorious service by radio and television networks, stations, cable television organizations, producing organizations, and individuals. Though there is no set number of awards, no more than 36 have ever been presented in a single year.