Univision @ The Museum of Television & Radio.

Univision Communications will donate to The Museum of Television & Radio, for more than two decades the nation’s most significant cultural institution devoted to the history of radio and TV, hundreds of hours of US Spanish- language TV broadcasts. The Univision donation will be the first major acquisition by the Museum’s new Center for Spanish-Language Programs. The Center’s mission is to build a comprehensive, one-of-a-kind collection of TV and radio programming from Latin America and Spain and US programming produced for Hispanic audiences. The Center will be a first for the United States.

Officials of both Univision and The Museum of Television & Radio are to announce the new Center and Univision’s donation tomorrow at a press conference at the Museum’s New York headquarters where nominees for “Premio Lo Nuestro,” at 15 years America’s longest- running Spanish-language music awards, will be announced. Cristina Saralegui, Museum trustee and host of Univision’s “El Show de Cristina,” will emcee the event. The formal presentation of Univision’s initial gift of 100 hours of programming to the Museum is to be made at a star-studded gala at the Delano Hotel in Miami Beach on February 4, 2003, when the Museum will be recognized for its commitment to showcase Spanish-language programming.

Under the agreement reached between Univision and the Museum, the first hundred hours of programming Univision will donate to the Museum will include all 15 broadcasts of “Premio Lo Nuestro,” 20 additional hours of music programming by “Premio” award-winners, and an additional 50 hours of Univision programming in a variety of genres representing the broad spectrum of Spanish-language TV in the United States. Univision is committed to donate to the Museum an additional 50 hours of its programming each year for the following two years (2004 and 2005). In addition to music awards show “Premio Lo Nuestro, Univision programming genres to be showcased at the Museum include variety, such as “Sabado Gigante” (Gigantic Saturday), the world’s longest-running and most watched TV variety show, telenovelas (limited-run soap operas, US Spanish-language television’s most popular format), and news broadcasts from both the Univision network and its local stations, including New York’s WXTV channel 41.