TV & VIDEO - May 4, 1987

TV coverage will be extensive Tuesday when the House-Senate hearings into the Iran-contra affair begin. Cable News Network plans gavel-to-gavel coverage that day and on succeeding days. C-Span, the public affairs programming service, will broadcast the full hearings in the evenings. NBC and CBS say they plan to televise that first day of the hearings, and ABC plans to anchor its evening news from Washington. The Public Broadcasting Service will transmit the opening day to its 317 stations, and live coverage beyond that will depend on newsworthiness, spokeswoman Mary Jane McKinvern said.