Looking Ahead to the 2027 JAG Awards: Time to Start Capturing!

By Connor Cheung, JAG Awards Committee, Chair

With the summer wrapping up and a brand-new production season officially underway, it’s time to turn our attention toward the 2027 JAG Awards.

While May might feel like a long way off, we all know how fast a year moves in local media. Between town council meetings, community events, high school sports games, and creative studio shows, your cameras are already rolling on the exact kind of work that defines our local programming.

Now is the ideal time to start keeping a running tab of your best pieces. We’ve all been there—scrambling through hard drives and archives right before the deadline trying to remember which episode featured that great interview or which game had the buzzer-beater finish. By keeping the awards categories in the back of your mind as you edit throughout the fall and winter, you can save yourself a massive headache down the road. Just flag those standout projects as you go.

We’re also taking the feedback from this past year’s evaluation sheets to heart. The committee is working on streamlining the submission process and ironing out category details to make entering smoother and more straightforward than ever. We want to make sure the focus stays entirely on celebrating the incredible stories you bring to life every single week.

Keep an eye out for updates, category announcements, and official timeline guidelines in the upcoming newsletters. If your station has any special series or new local programming launching this fall, definitely make sure it’s on your radar to submit.

Local access television continues to prove just how essential it is for keeping our neighborhoods connected, informed, and entertained. Keep up the fantastic work out there in the field, start saving those clips, and let’s make the 2027 season our best one yet!

The JAG Awards will be held on May 12, 2027 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Edison, NJ as part of the JAG’s Annual Conference.