PEABODY AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Television movies about victims of AIDS and Alzheimer’s disease were among 27 winners of the 1985 George Foster Peabody Awards announced Monday.

Talk show host Johnny Carson and “Live Aid” concert organizer Bob Geldof also were selected for the awards, which honor distinguished broadcast programming.

CBS and Public Broadcasting Service news shows each received two awards.

The Peabody Awards, administered by the University of Georgia School of Journalism and Mass Communications, will be presented Wednesday in New York.

The Peabody judges said that Carson’s “Tonight Show” for nearly 25 years has “entertained and amused American television viewers as no other program has.”

Geldof, a British rock musician who organized the “Live Aid” concerts broadcast from Philadelphia and London to fund hunger relief, was cited for “his personal commitment to helping alleviate hunger throughout the world.”

The judges said “An Early Frost,” an NBC movie about the family of a man who contracts acquired immune deficiency syndrome, was “an honest and tender drama.”

CBS Entertainment and David Bell Productions were honored for “Do You Remember Love,” the story of a college professor and poet afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease.

CBS News won awards for “The Number Man--Bach at Three Hundred,” a radio program about composer Johann Sebastian Bach, and for “Whose America Is It?,” a TV documentary about conflicts created by immigration.

PBS’ “McNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” received an award for an examination of life in South Africa called “Apartheid’s People.” Another PBS news program, “Frontline,” was honored for a four-part series, “Crisis in Central America.”

NBC News won a Peabody for its TV documentary “Vietnam Ten Years After,” a look at the country 10 years after the United States pulled out.

Two San Francisco television stations also won awards: KDTV-TV for live coverage of the Mexico City earthquakes, and KGO-TV for “The American West: Steinbeck Country.”

Other Peabody winners included:

--”The Final Chapter,” a Japanese documentary about nuclear war and the possibility of “nuclear winter.”

--The Harvey Milk Film Project Inc. and WNET-TV for “The Times of Harvey Milk,” about the slain San Francisco gay rights leader.

--The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for a program on legal and ethical problems, “Seminars on Media and Society.”

--The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts for “Live From Lincoln Center.”

--Central Independent Television and WETA-TV, Washington, for “The Skin Horse,” about the emotional and sexual lives of disabled people.

--Lawrence Freiberg, president of MCA Broadcast Group and a former executive with Group W Broadcasting, for “outstanding contributions to broadcasting.”

--Spinning Reels and Home Box Office for an education series for children, “Braingames.”

--WHAS radio, Louisville, Ky., for “Down and Outside: On the Streets of Louisville,” a documentary on the homeless.

--”Liberation Remembered,” an independently produced documentary about the release of Nazi death camp prisoners.

--”Breakdown and Back,” an independently produced documentary about a mental breakdown.

--WGBH radio, Boston, for programming and leadership that makes it “one of the most outstanding public radio stations in the United States.”

--WCCO-TV, Minneapolis, for a five-month investigation exposing abuses in the home health care industry.

--WBZ-TV, Boston, for “Tender Places,” a 12-year-old’s view of divorce.

--WMSV-TV, Nashville, Tenn., for “A Higher Standard,” described by the judges as a “captivating examination of the character, integrity and moral standards of a U.S. congressman.”