PBS captured two top children’s television honors, for preschool series and animated show, at the Daytime Emmy Awards ceremonies June 20 in Los Angeles.
Most public television honors were presented for creative arts, encompassing behind-the-scenes work; one, Mind of a Chef, was in the daytime program category.
The new PBS Kids animated series Peg + Cat took a total of three statuettes, and longtime favorite Sesame Street, six.
The annual honoree for lifetime achievement was Russ Morash, producer and director of public TV icon series including The French Chef with Julia Child, and the creator of This Old House. American Public Television “started with the distribution of The French Chef,” said APT spokesperson Jamie Haines. “Russ inspired the lifestyle-programming genre.” Without Morash, she noted, APT’s Create multichannel would not exist.
On Friday night, PBS scored the most Emmys of all networks with 12, including one for Joseph Rosendo’s Travelscope, distributed by APT. Nickelodeon took 10; CBS, eight.; Hub Network, from Discovery Communications and Hasbro, six; TOLN.com (The Online Network, a now-defunct soap opera site), five; ABC and Cooking Channel, three each; Cartoon Network and retro station MeTV, two each; and one each for Disney Channel, HGTV, MTV, mipromise.com (a web show from The Young and the Restless star Lauralee Bell) and Oprah Winfrey’s OWN.
Hayley Faith Negrin, left, and Jennifer Oxley discuss Peg + Cat at the Television Critics Association Press Tour in August 2013. Each just won an Emmy for their work on the animated show. (Photo: Rahoul Ghose/PBS)
For Peg + Cat, winners were Executive Producers Jennifer Oxley, Billy Aronson, Vince Commisso and Kevin Morrison; Supervising Producers Alia Nakashima and Tanya Green; Producer Jaclynn Demas; Animation Producers Robert Powers and Brett Hall; and Line Producer Christine Davis.
Oxley was one of eight winners for individual achievement in animation, for production design of Peg+Cat.
Hayley Faith Negrin, who was the youngest nominee at 11 years old, took home the honor of performer in an animated program for her voice portrayal of Peg.
Honored for Sesame Street were Executive Producer Carol-Lynn Parente; Nadine Zylstra, supervising producer; Benjamin Lehmann, senior producer; April Coleman, coordinating producer; Mindy Fila, producer; and Stephanie Longardo, line producer.
The show also won for:
• Writing in a children’s series, with awards to Joseph Mazzarino, head writer, and writers Molly Boylan, Annie Evans, Christine Ferraro, Emily Kingsley, Luis Santeiro, Ed Valentine, Belinda Ward and John Weidman.
Lifetime achievement honoree Russ Morash, left, with WGBH President Jon Abbott at the June 20 awards. Morash began work at WGBH in 1957 and went on to shape lifestyle programming. (Photo: Peter Panagopoulos )
• Directing in a children’s series for Kevin Clash, Ken Diego, Joseph Mazzarino, Scott Preston, Lisa Simon, Matt Vogel and Nadine Zylstra. Also, multiple camera editing, Supervising Editor Todd James; editors Jesse Averna and John Tierney.
• Sound mixing, live action, Chris Prinzivalli, production mixer; Michael Barrett and Michael Croiter, re-recording mixers; and Dick Maitland, SFX mixer.
• Sound editing, live action, Michael Barrett and Chris Prinzivalli, supervising sound editors; Michael Croiter, supervising music editor; Jorge Muelle, music editor; Chris Sassano, sound editor; and Dick Maitland, sound effects editor.
Another PBS Kids series, Arthur, won for writing in an animated program. Honored were Executive Story Editor Peter K. Hirsch and writers Craig Carlisle, Jacqui Deegan, Matt Hoverman and Dietrich Smith.
Nature won for promotional announcement, episodic: Kathryn Daily, producer; Derrick Chamlee, creative director; Eric Yeater, writer; Lesli Rotenberg, s.v.p., marketing and communications; Jennifer Allen, senior director, and Amy Tan, assistant director, primetime strategy and advertising.
And Mind of a Chef, which is distributed by PBS and also airs on APT’s Create channel, won for culinary program.
Another public TV winner was Joseph Rosendo, chosen as top host in a lifestyle/travel program for Joseph Rosendo’s Travelscope, distributed by APT.
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