‘Jane the Virgin,’ John Oliver among Peabody Award winners
LOS ANGELES – “Jane the Virgin” and John Oliver’s satirical news show are among the winners in the first round of this year’s Peabody Awards. 
The Peabody panel deemed the CW sitcom “Jane the Virgin” a “smart, self-aware telenovela” and its star Gina Rodriguez “incandescent.”
HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” is a “worthy addition to the news-as-comedy genre,” and offers “fresh, feisty investigative reports,” the panel said in announcing its entertainment awards this week.
Others winners include “The Americans”; “Fargo”; “The Honorable Woman”; “Inside Amy Schumer”; “The Knick”; “Rectify” and “Black Mirror,” an English TV anthology of dark tales.
Individual and institutional Peabodys are being awarded to David Attenborough, the veteran British nature documentarian, and “Afropop Worldwide,” a public radio series about African music and its international incarnations.
Peabody news and radio winners will be announced Monday, followed on Thursday by honorees in the documentary, public service, education and children’s programming areas.
Winners will receive their statuettes May 31 in New York as the awards take a step toward glamor with its first red-carpet evening ceremony, hosted by Fred Armisen (whose “Portlandia” comedy is a past Peabody recipient). The ceremony will be featured in a Peabody special airing June 21 on Pivot.
The awards for the best in electronic media, in their 74th year, are decided by the board of the George Foster Peabody Awards at the University of Georgia. (AP)
