Billy Aronson (second from left) and Jennifer Oxley, co-creators of “Peg + Cat,” a production of the Fred Rogers Company, share their Emmy Awards for “Outstanding Pre-School Children’s Animated Series” and “Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation for Production Design” with Ready to Learn (RTL) Program Manager Brian Lekander (left) and RTL Program Officer Adam Bookman. (Department of Education photo by Paul Wood)
Peg + Cat, the animated PBS KIDS math series launched last fall, won three Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Awards last month, including Outstanding Pre-School Children’s Animated Series. Funded in part by ED’s Ready To Learn (RTL) program, the series follows the spirited Peg and her loyal sidekick Cat, as they embark on hilarious musical adventures, learning math concepts along the way. The series provides young viewers with a new way to experience math and highlights its importance in a variety of everyday situations. Music is used as a teaching tool throughout the series and each episode features an original song.
Series co-creator and executive producer Jennifer Oxley also received the Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation for Production Design. Oxley made her first film at the age of 7 and has devoted much of her professional career to educational television and film, including direction of 15 short films for Sesame Street, as well as the award-winning adaptation of Spike Lee and Tanya Lewis Lee’s children’s book, Please, Baby, Please. Eleven-year-old Hayley Faith Negrin, the voice of Peg and the youngest nominee at this year’s Daytime Emmy Awards, received the award for Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Program.
In a press release from The Fred Rogers Company, the nonprofit producer of Peg + Cat, Paul Siefken, the company’s vice president of broadcast and digital media, said, “We’re delighted that the Emmy Awards committee has recognized Peg + Cat as an exceptional series with much to offer for today’s preschoolers and families.” In its premiere week last October, the television series reached 2.2 million children; in a typical month between October and May, more than 10 million individuals ages 2 and up, as well as 6.7 million households, viewed the show’s episodes.
“Pet + Cat” is winner of the 2014 Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Award for “Outstanding Pre-School Children’s Animated Series.” (Peg + Cat: © 2014, Feline Features LLC and The PBS KIDS logo is a registered mark of PBS and is used with permission.)
Like all Ready To Learn initiatives, Peg + Cat employs a variety of media to engage children and families in early learning and school readiness, with a particular focus on low-income children. In addition to the television series, the Peg + Cat multi-platform media experience employs interactive mobile and online content, including games and other online resources at pbskids.org/peg, and additional interactive features, including steaming video, parent and educator resources, and mobile apps. In the first season, the online game collection received nearly 14 million pageviews and a Peg + Cat mobile app was downloaded more than 42,000 times. Community engagement with schools is also an important outreach strategy, and to date more than 1,200 educators and 15,000 children and families have participated in 88 school events.
Peg + Cat is partially funded through a $71 million RTL grant from the Office of Innovation and Improvement to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting Service. The RTL program encourages and supports the development and use of television and digital media to promote early learning and school readiness for young children and their families, as well as the dissemination of educational outreach programs and materials to promote school readiness. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting Service are one of three RTL grant recipients, each of which received awards in 2010.
Doug Herbert is a special assistant in the Office of Innovation and Improvement and editor of the OII home page.
