The 3rd Annual 'TV Guide Awards' Announces Nominees

PRNewswire - December 28, 2000

SOURCE: Gemstar-TV Guide International, Inc.

New Categories, Expanding Honorees Reflect Broader Range of TV, Special to Be Taped February 24 & Air March 7th on FOX

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- With nine new categories and 240 nominees in all (241 if you separately count Will Ferrell and Darrell Hammond as "Bush vs. Gore" on Saturday Night Live), the excitement continues to build for the third annual "TV Guide Awards," which has announced its first-round nominees. Executive produced by Bob Bain, the event takes center stage at the Shrine Expo Center in Los Angeles on February 24, 2001 and will air on March 7, 2001 on FOX.

The winners will be determined via ballots published in the January 6 and January 13 issues of TV Guide magazine®, and made available online at www.tvguide.com and through AOL (keyword "TV Guide"). Two million fans are expected to submit ballots this year, confirming the "TV Guide Awards" as the largest fan-based awards show.

The "TV Guide Awards" began the process this year by soliciting the opinions of 115 top executives and producers from broadcast and cable networks, studios and production companies. This expert panel -- the breadth of which testifies to TV Guide's ongoing coverage of broadcast, cable and syndicated programming -- received open nomination forms in early November and helped to tighten competition within each category by holding the first round of nominees to a dozen. Members of this panel, and hundreds of other entertainment professionals, are expected to attend the February 24 awards show.

This year's categories include "Comedy Series of the Year" and "New Series of the Year" as well as "Actress of the Year in a Comedy Series" and "Actor of the Year in a Comedy Series." New categories include "Music Special of the Year" and "Music Series of the Year," "Supporting Actor /Actress of the Year in a Drama/Comedy" (four separate categories), "Reality Series of the Year," "Breakout Star of the Year," and "Personality of the Year." Revealing how talk shows are host-driven, two categories from last year's awards were consolidated into "Talk/Variety Host of the Year" and, similarly, various news categories of the past were fused into "News Person of the Year."

"The additions and changes this year reflect the growth in the television industry-at-large and the natural evolution of the 'Awards' in response," stated Janice Kaplan, executive producer of TV Guide Television. "While most of the excitement is still focused on the main categories, such new areas as "Personality of the Year" and "Breakout Star of the Year" will be difficult to predict until all the ballots are counted."

The 2001 nominees are:

Comedy Series of the Year