Bob & Dolores Hope Charitable Foundation Donates $1 Million to ATAS Foundation; ``ATAS Archive Comedy Collection Sponsored by Bob Hope'' Formed.

Entertainment/News Editors

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif.--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--March 5, 2002

The Bob & Dolores Hope Charitable Foundation has donated $1 million to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation (ATASF). The donation has the proviso that the funds be used entirely to advance the work of the Foundation's Archive of American Television in general and to create and maintain specifically within that Archive a newly created "ATAS Archive Comedy Collection Sponsored by Bob Hope," it was announced today by Foundation Chairman Thomas W. Sarnoff.

The ATAS Foundation's prestigious on-going Archive of American Television program presently has completed more than 260 video-taped interviews with the men and women who have had diversified careers as pioneers in television and who have made major contributions to the history, development and advancement of television. The "ATAS Archive Comedy Collection Sponsored by Bob Hope" will be an assembly of existing and future comedy-oriented interviews. Among the existing comedy interviews that may be integrated into the "ATAS Archive Comedy Collection Sponsored by Bob Hope" are those with Steve Allen, Beatrice Arthur, Phyllis Diller, Bob Newhart, Barbara Eden, Larry Gelbart, Garry Marshall and many others.

Future plans call for making the entire Archive collection, along with the Hope section, available for broadcast quality downloading on the internet. In addition, special events, programs and presentations are planned for the Hope Collection.

For more than a year, 30- and 60-second sound bites from the Archive have been running as interstitials on the TV Land network as the first public exposure of the collection. More ambitious use of the collection is planned for the future.

As the non-profit educational wing of the Television Academy, the Academy Foundation also is responsible for supporting such programs and services as student awards, internships and faculty seminars and such other annual fund-raising special events as "Celebrity Golf Tournament at the Riviera Country Club" (set this year for April 8) and "Television Night at the Hollywood Bowl."

Sarnoff, who has had a 50-year relationship with the Academy as well as with Hope and his family dating back to when Sarnoff first joined NBC ultimately to become head of NBC West Coast and then President of NBC Entertainment Corp. and a member of the Board of Directors of Hope Enterprises, was primarily responsible for bringing the Hope grant into the Academy.

Said Sarnoff: "The ATAS Foundation is grateful to The Bob & Dolores Hope Charitable Foundation for its very generous contribution and for giving our existing Archive an opportunity to create the new Comedy Collection, which is sponsored by Bob Hope. It is a most fitting way for the Academy to perpetuate the public's awareness of Bob Hope, his role in the entertainment industry, and his contribution to both the Archive and to the history of television, which the Archive hopes to immortalize by its efforts."

At ceremonies today at the Television Academy, The Bob & Dolores Hope Charitable Foundation name was permanently added onto the Academy's Million Dollar Donor Wall, alongside that of Leonard H. Goldenson, the late Chairman of ABC, who years earlier made a $1 million contribution to the ATAS Foundation for the purpose of assisting in the Academy's purchase of the 600-seat Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre and Conference Center in North Hollywood. Attending today's ceremony were Hope's daughter, Linda Hope, along with Phyllis Diller, Florence Henderson, Larry Gelbart, Jayne Meadows, Messrs. Sarnoff, ATAS Chairman Bryce Zabel, ATAS Chief Operating Officer Herb Jellinek, the Archives' Executive Producer Michael Rosen and numerous other Foundation directors, ATAS officers, governors, media and staff. Hope, now 98, was unable to attend the ceremonies personally but it was reported by his family that he is well aware of the Hope Foundation's contribution to the ATAS Foundation and the Archives' plans on how the new funds will be used.

Note to press: A photo of Bob Hope is immediately available via E-Mail from Adam Levbarg of Weissman/Delson Communications at [e-mail]. Also available by E-Mail (Tuesday afternoon 3/5) will be photos of Linda Hope making the presentation to Academy officers.