Peabody Awards Tap PBS, HBO

ByABC News
April 1, 2001, 7:32 PM

March 30 -- NEW YORK (Variety) The Sopranos and The West Wing took top prizes for the second straight year as the 60th annual Peabody Awards for broadcast excellence were announced Thursday.

HBO, home of The Sopranos, boasted five of the coveted nods, second only to PBS's eight.

NBC and CBS both took three honors. Fox carried one for Malcolm in the Middle, and Comedy Central made a surprise appearance with The Daily Show With Jon Stewart: "Indecision 2000," a series of stories that the Peabody board called "razor-sharp coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign from an unlikely source."

ABC was missing in action.

The 34 winners were culled from nearly 1,100 entries. The announcement came from the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, which has administered the awards since 1940.

They will be formally presented May 21 at a luncheon at New York's Waldorf Astoria hotel that will be hosted by news reporter Christiane Amanpour.

In addition to The Sopranos, HBO also counted wins for The Corner, Academy Award-winning documentary short King Gimp, Cancer: Evolution to Revolution, and Ali-Frasier 1: One Nation Divisible.

Dateline NBC won for the "The Paper Chase," a segment on denied medical claims, and NBC News was tapped for Katie Couric's "Controlling Colon Cancer" episode.

CBS took home prizes for 60 Minutes II: "Death by Denial," about the AIDS epidemic in Africa; 48 Hours: "Heroes Under Fire," about the death of six firefighters; and Sharing the Secret, a mother-daughter drama.

PBS received awards for Regret to Inform, 1900 House, Frontline: Drug Wars, Napoleon, School Sleuth: The Case of an Excellent School, animated kids' series Arthur, Building Big, and Exxon Mobil Masterpiece Theater: David Copperfield.