President George W. Bush Selected as A&E Network's 2002 Biography of the Year; World Premiere on Monday, December 9, 8-10pm ET/PT

Business Wire, Dec 9, 2002

Business & Entertainment Editors

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NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 9, 2002

A&E Network has selected President George W. Bush as the 2002 BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR.

The Network's eighth annual Biography of the Year will premiere on A&E, Monday, December 9 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT and will encore on Sunday, December 15 at 6:00 p.m. ET/PT.

In a ceremony this afternoon at The White House, A&E Television Networks CEO/President Nick Davatzes, A&E's Executive Vice President/General Manager Abbe Raven and Harry Smith, host of Biography, presented President Bush with the Biography of the Year award, which consists of an original Peter Max portrait of the 43rd President. (This marks the sixth portrait of a U.S. President created by Peter Max).

The Biography of the Year is presented to the individual who had the greatest impact in 2002. In America's ongoing war against terrorism, the Commander in Chief has projected the leadership and unshakable confidence that seems to run in the Bush family. In the 2002 mid-term elections President Bush's popularity and his tireless campaigning translated into a Republican majority in both the House and the Senate. This was a historic milestone, marking only the third time in a century that the president's party has gained House seats in a midterm election. A few days following the mid-term elections the President scored another victory when the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to disarm Saddam Hussein. UN Weapons inspectors are currently in Iraq.

The President led an eclectic group of 10 individuals culled from the events of the past year. In addition to President Bush, the individuals profiled in the countdown represent the full range of events and news from the arenas of domestic politics and economics, popular entertainment, sports, world affairs and public safety.

    The following is a list of the 10, in their actual order, as
profiled in the special:

1. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH  (Biography of the Year)
2. YASSER ARAFAT/ARIEL SHARON
3. THE OSBOURNES
4. ELIZABETH SMART
5. COLLEEN ROWLEY
6. SADDAM HUSSEIN
7. SERENA WILLIAMS
8. THE BELTWAY SNIPER SUSPECTS
9. HALLE BERRY
10.MARTHA STEWART

The list includes national and world figures that dominated the news this year, such as Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon. The list also features entertainment figures such as Halle Berry, the current "Bond girl" who this year became the first African American woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress, as well as rock legend Ozzy Osbourne and his family who caught America's imagination with their hit reality series on television.

The Biography of the Year list also includes media queen Martha Stewart, who landed in the middle of an insider trading investigation that threatened her corporate empire; FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, who outlined the Bureau's failures that might have contributed to U.S. vulnerability to terrorism. Also on the list is young Elizabeth Smart, whose still unsolved disappearance has helped to focus the public's attention on the issue of child abduction. The world's number-one tennis player Serena Williams, who led the sport this year by capturing three Grand Slam titles (French Open, Wimbledon, and U.S. Open). In addition, the list includes the suspected Beltway Snipers, John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, who allegedly went on a vicious spree this year that left 14 people in four states and Washington DC dead and five wounded.

In 2001, A&E Network presented the BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR to former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Nominated for more Emmy Awards in the past two years than any other basic cable network, A&E offers a unique blend of critically acclaimed original programming, including Biography, original movies and mini-series, engaging documentary series and specials. In 2002, A&E won six Emmy Awards, including one for BIOGRAPHY as Outstanding Non-Fiction Series (Informational). In 2000, A&E was awarded the Governors Award from The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for The Biography Project for Schools. A&E is available in more than 85 million Nielsen homes in the United States. The A&E web site is located at www.AandE.com and the BIOGRAPHY web site is located at www.Biography.com.

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