'Idol' fundraiser, HBO "Project" honored

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The "Idol Gives Back" fundraising effort by Fox's "American Idol" and HBO's outreach campaign "The Addiction Project" will receive special honors next month from the group that hands out the Emmy Awards.

The shows will be presented with Governors Awards during the nontelevised creative arts portion of the Emmy Awards, which will be handed out at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on September 8, eight days before the Primetime Emmy Awards.

The Governors Award honors an individual, company or organization "whose works stand out with the immediacy of current achievement," according to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Board of Governors.

"Idol Gives Back" helped raise more than $75 million to benefit relief programs for children and young people in extreme poverty in America and Africa. The event, hosted by Ryan Seacrest and Ellen DeGeneres, aired April 24-25.

"Addiction," designed to help Americans understand addiction as a chronic but treatable brain disease, was a partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. It featured a 14-part series from various documentary filmmakers along with an outreach campaign in more than 100 cities.

Last year's Governors Award recipient was mtvU for its Campaign for Darfur.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter