The Television Academy has announced Greg Berlanti as the 2024 Governors Award recipient in recognition of his significant impact on television and culture by depicting the underrepresented in film and in such iconic series as Dawson’s Creek, Riverdale, All American, The Flight Attendant and You.
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.
Berlanti will receive his Emmy® statuette during the 76th Emmy Awards ceremony on Sunday, Sept. 15, at the Peacock Theater at L.A. LIVE.
He began his career in television as a staff writer on the hit show Dawson’s Creek and became the executive producer and showrunner of the series after only one season. In the ensuing years, he has served as creator, writer and executive producer on over 45 television shows, including Political Animals, Arrow, Blindspot, The Flash, Supergirl, Everwood, You, Titans, Riverdale, Doom Patrol, All American, Found and The Flight Attendant. Berlanti Productions has had a record-breaking 15 shows on the air at one time.
Berlanti has engineered many cultural television-industry firsts via his passion for including the invisible and underrepresented in his storytelling, which has propelled him into the ranks of cultural icon. He helped introduce a gay character into a primetime television show and featured the first same-sex kiss between two men on U.S. network television with Dawson’s Creek.
In 2006, Berlanti executive produced and wrote Brothers & Sisters for ABC, which aired for five seasons and featured the first same-sex legal marriage on network television. In 2007, Berlanti executive produced Dirty Sexy Money for ABC, which featured the first recurring transgender character on primetime television; and in 2018 he introduced the first transgender superhero on his series Supergirl.
His commitment to diversity and inclusion continued with Batwoman featuring the first openly gay superhero to headline a series and Red, White and Royal Blue, which gave LGBTQ+ audiences a royal rom-com of their own.
Berlanti is currently the executive producer of Brilliant Minds, a new NBC series premiering this fall, which features the first single gay lead in a U.S. medical drama.
“Greg is an extraordinary creator who consistently delivers characters and stories that are in dialogue with the real world,” said Television Academy chair Cris Abrego. “From the beginning of his career, his commitment to representing three-dimensional LGBTQ+ characters in particular has paved the way for greater cultural understanding and acceptance of a community that is often under attack in both social and political discourse. For seizing the power of television to move our culture forward, the Academy is honored to select Greg Berlanti for this year’s Governors Award.”
“I am beyond grateful to be receiving this overwhelming and humbling honor from the Board of Governors and the Television Academy. Every minute in this business has been the greatest gift that I’m eternally thankful for,” said Berlanti. “It will be nice to have an opportunity to thank all the family, friends, showrunners, execs, cast, crews and audiences that have made an honor like this possible.”
The Berlanti Family Foundation was founded in 2019 to support numerous charities and those in need, including F Cancer, ACLU, The Giving Spirit, GLAAD, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Girls Inc., and many more. Additionally, Berlanti and his Foundation gave over $2 million to support those in the industry that were affected by production shutdowns from COVID-19 and the industry strikes with donations to the MPTF, the Entertainment Community Fund, and a direct fund for his own productions.
TIME magazine listed Berlanti as one of the top 100 most influential people of 2020, the Producers Guild of America honored him with the Norman Lear Achievement Award in 2022, and he was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2023.
Previous recipients of the Governors Award, which was first presented in 1978, include LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization GLAAD, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, Debbie Allen, Tyler Perry, Star Trek, American Idol, William S. Paley, Hallmark Cards Inc., Masterpiece Theater, Comic Relief and PBS.
