North Hollywood, CA - The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors voted this evening to approve the creation of the first-ever Reality Peer Group and rename the current Nonfiction Peer Group as the Documentary Peer Group. Prior to tonight's vote, both reality and documentary television professionals comprised the membership of the Nonfiction Peer Group.
The new Reality Peer Group will be made up of Academy members engaged in reality programming for national exhibition. The renamed Documentary Peer Group will continue to include members involved in documentary programming, produced for informational or entertainment value by programmers and filmmakers, as opposed to documentaries produced by news organizations for national exhibition.
The changes reflect the growth and strength of reality programming and the producing and craft communities associated with the genre, while also differentiating the work of documentary style programming.
This will bring the Academy's number of Peer Groups to a total of 29. To accommodate the additional Peer Group governors, all active members of the non-profit Television Academy will be asked to vote for a by-law change that will permit an increased and variable number of governors.
