ON THE TUBE: Last week’s American Music...

ON THE TUBE: Last week’s American Music Awards was crammed with its customary assortment of excitement and surprises--Wham’s George Michael, for instance, showed off a chest so full of hair that if he gave a dollar to charity for every follicle he could probably feed everyone in China. But how’s this for a oddity? Although Madonna was prominently billed in the advance ads for the show as making an appearance, “live via satellite from Hong Kong,” she was nowhere to be found during the telecast. What happened?

According to AMA publicist Paul Shefrin, show organizers were told less than three days before the awards aired that Madonna would be unavailable, due to a change in the production schedule of her film, “Shanghai Surprise,” which is in production in Hong Kong. “By the time we definitely knew she absolutely couldn’t make it,” Shefrin said, “it was too late to change the newspaper ads and listings.”

Shefrin also defended the show against charges that it had shied away from honoring Steve Van Zandt and Arthur Baker’s “Sun City” project because of fears of spotlighting a potentially controversial issue. (The program devoted a healthy chunk of air time to honoring Bob Geldof, Live Aid and the organizers of the “We Are the World” events, yet there was only a passing mention of the “Sun City” record and video.)

“At no time was either the production or the network concerned about mentioning ‘Sun City’ because of politics or anything else,” Shefrin said. “The committee that determines special awards meets in October and, at that time, the record didn’t exist or at least its impact hadn’t been felt.” When asked how the program was able to make room for a special tribute to the late Rick Nelson on such short notice--he died in an airplane crash Dec. 31--Shefrin replied, “That was a production value thing, not a committee decision about a special award which everyone felt was very deserving.”