Institutional Award: Austin City Limits

What began in 1976 as a showcase for music of the Lone Star State—Tejano, Western swing, Texas blues, outlaw country, rock-‘n’-roll—has long since evolved into an internationally revered venue for pretty much the gamut of American popular music, including folk, jazz, jam, alt-rock and hip-hop. The 2011 season of Austin City Limits featured name artists as diverse as Widespread Panic, Gillian Welch, Coldplay and songwriting legend Randy Newman, who delighted the live studio audience at Austin’s spacious Moody Theater with a mix of his sardonic standards and his sunnier compositions for Disney movies. But in most regards, ACL is the same show it was in its early, Armadillo World Headquarters days: low on frills, dedicated to quality, an oasis in the television world for musicians who want to play seriously for people who listen in kind. A rare institutional Peabody Award goes to Austin City Limits for its more than three decades of presenting and preserving eclectic American musical genres.