Prime Time

WASHINGTON -- Both political parties face serious convention problems. The Republicans are in trouble because Pat Buchanan is demanding prime time to give a speech denouncing everyone in attendance. If they don't give him what he wants, Pat has vowed to go on a hunger strike in a Rio Grande refugee camp.The problem for the Democrats is that they have four days with nothing to put on except Chelsea's clogging club.It is a very difficult situation. One solution has been suggested by Carter Cornwall, the Democratic entertainment chairman.

Here are the prime-time television ratings as compiled by the A.C. Nielsen Co. for the week of Jan. 14-20. The percentage of the nation's 92.1 million TV homes watching a particular show and the number of homes watching are listed.1. "60 MINUTES," CBS, 27.2, 25.3 million homes.2. "CBS NFC CHAMPIONSHIP POST-GAME," CBS, 26.2, 24.4 million homes.3. "ROSEANNE," ABC, 19.6, 18.2 million homes.4. "MURDER, SHE WROTE," CBS, 18.8, 17.5 million homes.5. "ABC SPECIAL REPORT A Line in the Sand," ABC, 18.1, 16.9 million homes.

POLITE PEOPLE used to be raised with the admonition that politics and religion were not to be discussed in social settings. And that usually included the nightly dinner table where the family was advised to stick to timely items like when Junior's first tooth would come out or if that cute boy would ask Sis to the prom.Such niceties used to rule in the "Father Knows Best" world of prime time until one day in 1971 when a producer named Norman Lear decided that there was a war going on -- both in the rice fields of Vietnam and the living rooms of America -- and that it was high time television started paying some attention.

The postponement of tomorrow's Pepsi 400 NASCAR race leaves CBS with not only an immediate programming hole to fill, namely the 8-11 p.m. Saturday night block, but also a major decision and a philosophical question to answer down the road.The new Pepsi 400 date of Oct. 17 falls in the middle of the new fall entertainment schedule, is smack dab in the midst of the college football season and is the scheduled day for Game 1 of the World Series, an event that will draw a goodly number of male viewers who might tune into the race.

Forget Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw. Even Bart Simpson was no competition for Peter Jennings on election night as far as Baltimore viewers were concerned. ABC News owned the market and provided ratings coattails so long that WJZ (Channel 13) News was able to ride them to an overwhelming local victory despite a sloppy performance, according to the new overnight ratings services.The Nielsen and Arbitron meters also showed that Arnold Schwarzenegger was pretty hot, while WMAR (Channel 2) News definitely was not. And the PBS prime-time disaster, "The Finish Line," took MPT (Channels 22 and 67)

Reporters wearing gas masks. The night sky over Baghdad eerily lit by anti-aircraft fire. Anchormen flanked by retired generals. Three-D computer graphics aimed at putting viewers in the seat of American war planes. This is war as television spectacle, and by 11 a.m. yesterday it overtook all programming on the major networks and the all-news cable channels -- until prime time, anyway. Yet, despite a tidal wave of striking images and new information delivered with great urgency, what television news mainly delivered during the first day of warfare was confusion.

The debate over whether the U.S. should release a "death photo" of Osama bin Laden made its way to "The Daily Show" last night.  Host Jon Stewart made a serious, yet funny, argument for the release of the photos.  He rejected arguments that the photos are too "gruesome" or "gory" as bogus.   "Too gory? Have you met us?" Stewart asked. "From 8 p.m. on, every show on television we watch begins with an internal tracking shot of a gaping wound above someone's left eye puiling out only to reveal half a hooker in a dumpster discovered by a child on a bicycle.

On The Weekend Watch:A STATE OF MIND -- Gov. William Donald Schaefer's annual "State of the State" address to the General Assembly, delivered earlier today, will be rebroadcast in its entirety tonight by Maryland Public Television, at 7:30 p.m. And with another legislative session under way, MPT's weekly state government coverage show, "State Circle," returns for an 11th season at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Dave Durian hosts, with reporters Sue Kopen, Nate Howard and Jeff Salkin, and this week's show is a preview of the dire economic conditions facing the new session.

On The Weekend Watch:THE MAGAZINE RACK -- In the mid-summer rerun desert, a trio of ABC news shows offer some interesting fresh fare. Tonight, for example, an hour-long "Peter Jennings Reporting" special (at 8, Channel 13) takes a look at the Dance Theatre of Harlem. In addition to its focus on founder Arthur Mitchell, the show also addresses the broader question that can be applied to many fine arts organi-zations: How to get the money to survive? Also tonight (at 10), "Primetime Live" includes the nearby environs of Washington in a report on lead contamination of soil.

UPDATE (11 a.m. Nov. 29): Jeff Zucker named head of CNN Of all the major executive, talent and programming moves that CNN has made in the last few years, the expected announcement of Jeff Zucker as the president of CNN Worldwide looks like one of the best. Of course, when you're comparing that to, say, giving the 8 p.m. hour each night to Eliot Spitzer, that might not be such high praise. Seriously, this is a decision that truly matters -- not just for CNN and Time Warner, but for the future of TV journalism.