The 75th Peabody Awards ceremony will be held Saturday, May 21 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York and will be hosted by Keegan-Michael Key of Key & Peel fame. The Peabody Awards, based at the University of Georgia, will select finalists for the first time in its history, to be announced April 12. The Peabody 30 will be chosen from a list of 60.
“There are now more than 400 scripted prime-time television shows, new locations for documentary television, a flood of podcasts, and a wealth of quality digital storytelling,” Peabody Awards director Jeffrey P. Jones said. “Peabody has to reflect that change in order to continue to award the best of the best, while also recognizing and highlighting this expanded field of quality media production.”
The gala will air on Pivot June 6 (8 p.m. ET/PT), with Den of Thieves producing.
Several New York events will be held to commemorate the 75th anniversary. On May 18, the cast and showrunner of one of this year’s winners will be present for a screening and discussion, sponsored by Pivot. On May 19, Peabody will look back across the career of Sheila Nevins and a selection of the 49 Peabody winners that the HBO documentary unit has claimed over the last 35 years.
Key is the co-creator and co-star of Comedy Central’s Key & Peele, with Jordan Peele, which won a Peabody in 2014. He has also appeared in FX’s Fargo, USA’s Playing House, and NBC’s Parks & Recreation, and was a regular on Fox’s MADtv for six seasons.
Among his film work, Key stars in the caper comedy Keanu, also alongside Peele, which comes out April 29.
Peabody Awards are given out for excellence in electronic media.
