THIRTEEN PBS
Press Release
Company News - "American Masters Emmy Awards 2009"
THIRTEEN’s American Masters tops Emmy honors with its seventh win for “Outstanding Nonfiction Series” at the 2009 Creative Arts Emmy Awards

Emmy marks a record seventh win in this category for the series in the past 10 years.

New York, September 15, 2009 — THIRTEEN’s American Masters is the proud recipient of the 2009 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Series awarded by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) at the 61st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, on Saturday, September 12, 2009 in Los Angeles, CA. This is the series’ seventh Primetime Emmy win in this category in the past decade. American Masters’ winning entrant for this category is Jerome Robbins: Something to Dance About, directed and produced by six-time Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Judy Kinberg, written by best-selling Robbins biographer Amanda Vaill, and narrated by Ron Rifkin. Vaill and Rifkin both were nominated for their respective categories.

Currently in its 23rd Season, American Masters is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG – one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers.

“We are delighted American Masters has received this year’s Emmy for Outstanding Nonfiction Series,” says Neal Shapiro, president and CEO of WNET.ORG. “This is the series’ seventh win in this category since 1998. This vote of confidence from our colleagues at the Emmys is a great honor and another reminder that WNET.ORG is America’s premiere provider of arts and cultural programming.”

“This year’s win for American Masters is a record for any PBS documentary series,” says Susan Lacy series creator and executive producer of American Masters. “Our representative program this year was Jerome Robbins: Something to Dance About and ten years ago it was Leonard Bernstein: Reaching for the Note” which makes for nice symmetry. We couldn’t be happier or more proud to receive this award.”

Upcoming American Masters programs include folk legend Joan Baez (Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound, October 14, 2009) and novelist Louisa May Alcott (Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind ‘Little Women’, December 28, 2009). Future profiles include Johnny Carson, Miles Davis, Jack Kerouac, John Lennon, John Muir, Odetta, Jackson Pollock, and Stephen Spielberg, among others.

American Masters is an ongoing series of award-winning primetime specials examining the lives, works, and creative processes of our most outstanding cultural artists. Created in 1984 by Susan Lacy and produced for PBS by THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG, the series is both a celebration and an exploration of creativity in America. Consisting of more than 250 hours of programming to date, American Masters is a growing film library documenting the role important individuals, groups, and movements have played in the formation of our cultural identity.

To take American Masters beyond the television broadcast and further explore the themes, stories, and personalities of masters past and present, the companion Web site (pbs.org/americanmasters) offers interviews, essays, photographs, outtakes, and other resources. American Masters is made possible by the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding for American Masters is provided by Rosalind P. Walter, The Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation, Jack Rudin, Rolf and Elizabeth Rosenthal, The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, and public television viewers.

About WNET.ORG New York public media company WNET.ORG is a pioneering provider of television and web content. The parent of THIRTEEN, WLIW21 and Creative News Group, WNET.ORG brings such acclaimed broadcast series and websites as Worldfocus, Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, Charlie Rose, Wide Angle, Secrets of the Dead, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, Visions, Consuelo Mack WealthTrack, Wild Chronicles, Miffy and Friends, and Cyberchase to national and international audiences. Through its wide range of channels and platforms, WNET.ORG serves the entire New York City metro area with unique local productions, broadcasts and innovative educational and cultural projects. In all that it does, WNET.ORG pursues a single, overarching goal – to create media experiences of lasting significance for New York, America and the world. For more information, visit www.wnet.org.

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