LGBTQ+ Television and OutTV Atlanta

Excerpt of an OutTV feature interviewing E.T.C.E.T.E.R.A. editor Jack Pelham on the history of the Out on Film LGBTQ film festival, established in 1987, and his involvement in organizing the event. Copyright to this item is owned by Mike Maloney. Courtesy of Georgia State University. Special Collections, LGBTQ Institute's Mike Maloney Collection of OutTV.


Footage of a Southeastern Gay Rodeo Association rodeo in 2000, including interviews with organizers describing the Association's non-profit status and work with local charities. Copyright to this item is owned by Mike Maloney. Courtesy of Georgia State University. Special Collections, LGBTQ Institute's Mike Maloney Collection of OutTV.


Short interviews with attendees at a cookout and fashion show held by Black and White Men Together Atlanta (now People of All Colors Together Atlanta), a chapter of the national BWMT organization founded in 1981. Copyright to this item is owned by Mike Maloney. Courtesy of Georgia State University. Special Collections, LGBTQ Institute's Mike Maloney Collection of OutTV.



After decades of television programs addressing homosexuality as a criminal offense or a problem to be solved, the made-for-TV documentary The Rejected (1961) on San Francisco’s KQED station became one of the earliest American television programs to feature gay men talking about their own lives. Twenty years later, in Georgia, The American Music Show (1981-05) combined sketch comedy and variety performance with reporting on local events. While not explicitly focused on queer life, the show turned its lens often upon the bars, performers, and shows that were at the center of Atlanta’s queer arts community. It was not until 1992 that the country as a whole saw the first LGBTQ+-focused television series, the news-magazine program In the Life, which during its twenty-year run on PBS covered major national news stories, profiled LGBTQ+ professionals across industries and organizations, and addressed socio-political inequities. Following in its footsteps with a lens narrowed once again on urban Georgia was OutTV Atlanta, a weekly half-hour public access news show that aired in Atlanta and Savannah between 1999 and 2001. The show’s producer, Mike Maloney, aimed to provide LGBTQ+ news content that went beyond nightlife coverage to document the lives and work of LGBTQ+ Georgians. Correspondents interviewed directors and program coordinators of Atlanta Pride, GLAAD, the Feminist Women’s Health Center, Georgia ACLU, Creating Change, AIDS Walk Atlanta, Youth Pride, the Atlanta Lesbian Cancer Initiative, and more. Footage also captured events and establishments that might have otherwise lived only in memory: fundraising benefits, art festivals, cabaret shows, community cookouts, puppet shows, gay rodeo events, bookstore readings, and stand-up comedy. LGBTQ+ people were shown with a depth not always present in southern television media: as professionals—artists, athletes, business owners, filmmakers, organizers, mechanics—and as people who went to church, gardened, participated in running groups, went to clubs, and lived rich lives as individuals and as communities.