PEABODY AWARDS COLLECTION

1940-present

The Peabody Awards Collection consists of almost all of the media submitted to the George Foster Peabody Awards, with new content added annually. Peabody entrants range from local public and commercial television and radio stations to national networks and streaming providers; programming from over twenty-five countries is included in the Collection. Analog formats represented in the Collection include radio transcription discs, audiotape, audiocassettes, 16mm kinescopes and prints, 2" videoreels, and videocassettes in a variety of formats. Many of the programs archived here may be the only surviving copies of the work, especially in the case of local radio and television broadcasting. Brown Media Archives provides access to the Collection via low-resolution streaming screeners when copyright permits; restricted materials can be accessed onsite at the Special Collections Library.


The Peabody Awards are the oldest and most prestigious awards in electronic media. The National Association of Broadcasters and the University of Georgia partnered to create the Peabody program, and the first awards were presented in 1941 for programs broadcast the previous year. Although the Awards began as a recognition of public service in radio broadcasting, they quickly expanded to include additional categories, such as News, Entertainment, Educational, Documentary, and Children/Youth. The first television award was given in 1949 and websites and internet-hosted interactive content began to be received in the late 1990s. In 2001, the Peabody Awards office adopted an online entry form, allowing for the creation of a Peabody Awards database and the easy inclusion of additional credits and descriptive information there. As of 2013, the Awards shifted to an all-digital format, with the entries themselves being submitted via digital upload, along with entry forms and additional documentation.


Press kits, scripts, and correspondence submitted with the entries are housed in the George Foster Peabody Awards Collection in the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library. (search for the collection under its identification number, ms3000*).


FINDING AIDS

RESEARCHING THE COLLECTION

In 2023, BMA merged the Peabody Database into our overall holdings to allow for integrated searching across all collections. We are updating our website to allow for enhanced searching of Peabody Awards Collection materials. Until those updates are complete, the most effective way to work with Peabody in BMA is to use the Advanced Search option on the Search Collections page. Add your search terms to the top field(s) and specify Peabody in the Collection field. You may also perform a simple search and then filter the results by collection to only include Peabody Awards entries. Archivists are available to help with research.


For more information about this collection, please contact Peabody Awards Collection Archivist Mary Miller


LICENSING

This collection consists almost entirely of copyrighted material. If you are interested in something from this collection, please check to see if is available directly from the copyright holder.

For licensing information, please see the Licensing Fee Schedule.

For more information about use of this collection, please contact the Director of the Media Archives, Ruta Abolins, via email: abolins@uga.edu, or phone: 706-542-4757.

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