When nominations for the 84th Annual Peabody Awards were announced last month, PBS led the pack with 11 out of the 68 total nods. Now that the winners list has been officially revealed, the public broadcaster earned a second-place finish, with five total honors. HBO/Max took the top spot with seven awards spread across entertainment and documentary categories. Comedian and actor Kumail Nanjiani will host the Peabody Awards ceremony, scheduled for June 9 at the famed Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles.
PBS can take bragging rights for dominating the news and non-fiction categories. As anticipated, Mstyslav Chernov‘s Oscar-winning documentary 20 Days at Mariupol—which received a theatrical release in addition to airing on Frontline—was among the six Peabody-winning documentaries. The gripping account of Russia’s siege of the Ukrainian city is available to watch for free on Frontline’s YouTube page.
The POV documentary While We Watched, which chronicles the ongoing attack on press freedoms in India, was also named a winner in the Documentary category. Additional statues went to National Geographic’s Bobi Wine: The People’s President and three HBO/Max productions: All That Breathes, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed and The Stroll.
Besides 20 Years at Mariupol, two additional Frontline productions received Peabody recognition. Clarence and Ginni Thomas: Politics, Power and the Supreme Court was one of five News winners, while America and the Taliban was named a winner for Public Service. The PBS NewsHour special War in the Holy Land rounded out the broadcaster’s five wins in the News category.
Local news received some Peabody love as well, with NBC’s Dallas-Fort Worth affiliate, KXAS-TV, and CBS’s Nashville station, WTVF-TV, both scoring News awards for their respective reports Against All Enemies and Hate Comes to Main Street. The Al Jazeera Media Network’s rounded out the category for their News piece, It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive.
All the winners will receive their statues at the June 9 ceremony—the first in-person event since 2019. The organization’s storied Institutional Award will be given to the Star Trek franchise, a clear sign that the Peabody Awards will continue to live long and prosper for the next 84 years.
The 84th Annual Peabody Awards will be held June 9 in Los Angeles