Breaking Bad wins a Peabody!

The intent of the Peabody Awards is to recognize the most outstanding achievements in electronic media, including radio, television and cable. The Award is determined by one criterion – "Excellence." The Peabody Awards are presented only to "the best of the best."

First presented in 1941, the George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished achievement and meritorious service by broadcasters, cable and Webcasters, producing organizations, and individuals. The awards program is administered by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. Selection is made each spring by the Peabody Board, a 16-member panel of distinguished academics, television critics, industry practitioners and experts in culture and the arts.

Today the George Foster Peabody Awards are often cited as the most selective and prestigious in electronic media. Each year, from more than one thousand entries, the Peabody Board selects the most outstanding works by unanimous vote. Though there is no set number of awards, no more than 36 have ever been presented in a single year.

Breaking Bad (AMC)
AMC, Sony Pictures Television, High Bridge Productions, Gran Via Productions
Bleak, harrowing, sometimes improbably funny, the series chronicled the consequences of a mild-mannered, dying science teacher's decision to secure his family's future by cooking methamphetamine.

Time Magazine in 1941:
A new type of accolade, which radio piously hopes will rank with journalism's Pulitzer Prizes and cinema's Oscars, was awarded for the first time last week. The trophies were four bronze medallions, each the size of a hockey puck. Their name: the George Foster Peabody Award "for conspicuous service in radio broadcasting." Selected for the first honors were: CBS (among chains), Cincinnati's 50,000-watt WLW (among big stations), Cleveland's 5,000-watt WGAR (among middle-sized stations), Columbia, null 250-watt KFRU (among small fry).

The idea of the awards was conceived by Lambdin Kay, public-service director for station WSB in Atlanta, and strenuously pushed by University of Georgia's publicity-minded dean of journalism, John E. Drewry. The University of Georgia itself awarded them, dubbing them after its late patron, Philanthropist George Foster Peabody, great & good friend of Franklin Roosevelt, who helped to found the Warm Springs Foundation.