Corporation for Public Broadcasting to Receive 2025 Governors Award at Creative Arts Emmys

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will be the recipient of the 2025 Governors Award at the Creative Arts Emmys, at which the Television Academy will recognize the organization’s five decades of “enriching America’s media landscape through funding and support for educational, cultural and public-interest programming,” the group announced on Tuesday.

On Sunday, Sept. 7, the trophy will be presented to Patricia de Stacy Harrison, the longest-serving president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Harrison has led CPB since 2005 — through the complex streaming age, in other words.

Unfortunately, an Emmy Award itself is not real, solid gold, which is what CPB really needs these days. In July, Congress voted to eliminate all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. NPR and PBS were the highest-profile victims. In response, PBS has sued the Trump administration.

“The Governors Award recognizes and celebrates extraordinary contributions that transcend television and transform society,” Television Academy chair Cris Abrego said in a statement on Tuesday. “For more than half a century, CPB has been a steadfast champion of storytelling that informs, educates and unites us and ensures public media remains a vital space where diverse voices are heard and communities are served. With this award, we honor CPB’s enduring legacy and its extraordinary impact on the cultural and civic life of our nation.”

The Governors Award is bestowed by the Television Academy’s Board of Governors and honors an individual, company or organization that has made “a profound, transformational and long-lasting contribution to the arts and/or science of television.”

Previous recipients of the Governors Award include GLAAD, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, Debbie Allen, Greg Berlanti, Tyler Perry, Star Trek, American Idol, William S. Paley, Hallmark Cards Inc., Masterpiece Theatre, Comic Relief and PBS.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting helped create PBS and has funded it, in part, for decades. It does not own PBS, however. Together, they have brought us iconic series like Sesame Street, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Finding Your Roots, Reading Rainbow, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and other seminal programming, including in the news space.

The 2025 Creative Arts Emmy Awards will be held over two consecutive nights, Saturday, Sept. 6, and Sunday, Sept. 7, at the Peacock Theater at L.A. LIVE. An edited presentation of the ceremonies will air Saturday, Sept. 13, at 8 p.m. PT on FXX; the program will be available to stream on Hulu through Oct. 7.

The 77th Emmy Awards will telecast live from the Peacock Theater at L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS, and will be available to stream live and on-demand on Paramount+.