1986 NEWS EMMYS : PBS LEADS PACK WITH 35 NOMINATIONS

With six nominations for “National Geographic,” four for “Frontline” and three for “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” PBS topped the commercial networks Monday in Emmy Award nominations for 1986 news and documentary programs.

PBS programs and personnel collected 35 of the 111 nominations announced by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, compared to 32 for CBS, 24 for ABC, 18 for NBC and two for syndication products.

ABC’s “Nightline” was the most-nominated individual program with eight--including three in the category of best coverage of a single breaking news story, for its programs on the hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73, the attack on Libya and the inauguration of Imelda Marcos as president of the Philippines.

Other programs nominated in that category were PBS’ “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” and ABC’s “World News Tonight,” both for coverage of the space-shuttle disaster.

The winners will be announced at a dinner in New York in September. The exact date has not yet been set, the academy said.

Programs nominated for providing the best background and analysis of a single current story were the “CBS Evening News” for its report on the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the CBS documentary “The Vanishing Family--Crisis in Black America,” “20/20” for “Inside the Washington Scandal--Secret Moves, Secret Men,” and PBS’ “Holy War, Holy Terror,” “Nuclear Legacy” and “Trade War: A Short Course on the Tokyo Summit.”

The nominees for best informational, cultural or historical programming were PBS’ “The Global Assembly Line,” PBS’ “Potomac: American Reflections,” PBS’ “World Without Walls: Beryl Markham’s African Memoir,” CBS’ “With Horowitz in Moscow,” PBS’ “The Bloods of ‘Nam,” ABC’s “Our World,” PBS’ “The Search for the Disappeared” and PBS’ “Before Stonewall.”

Bill Moyers received three of the four nominations for best interviewer, for two of his “Heritage Conversation” programs on PBS and “The Burger Years” on CBS. The other nominated program was PBS’ “Witness to War: Dr. Charlie Clements.”

The six nominations for “National Geographic” all came in the craft areas, such as sound, music and film editing.

Emmy nominations for prime-time entertainment programs will be announced Thursday morning. The 39th annual Emmy Awards are set for Sept. 20 at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.