Weekend TV : First Bush-Dukakis Debate--Live and on Tape--Will Dominate Sunday Viewing

The first of two scheduled presidential debates between Vice President George Bush and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis will push aside just about everything else on TV Sunday evening--including the Olympics.

Six networks--ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN and C-SPAN--will carry the 90-minute event live from Winston-Salem, N.C. at 5 p.m.

And if you can’t get to the set then, don’t worry. KCOP-TV Channel 13 will air a taped version of the debate at 8 p.m., and Fox Broadcasting (Channels 11 and 6) will do the same at 11 p.m. KMEX-TV Channel 34 will show a Spanish-dubbed version of the debate at 8 p.m.

Jim Lehrer of public television’s “MacNeil/Lehrer Report” will moderate the proceedings. Peter Jennings of ABC News, Anne Groer of the Orlando Sentinel and John Mashek of the Atlanta Constitution will pose questions to the candidates.

The network public affairs shows will preview the debate Sunday.

Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Albert Gore Jr. (D-Tenn.) will guest on “Face the Nation” (7:30 a.m. on Channel 2). Paul Brountas, Dukakis campaign chairman, will appear on “Meet the Press” (9 a.m. on Channels 4, 36), and James A. Baker III, Bush’s campaign manager, and Theodore Sorensen, an adviser to the Dukakis campaign, will be on “This Week With David Brinkley” (11:30 a.m. on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42).

Sunday also marks the premiere of “Lost Angeles,” a one-hour documentary that follows the lives of six homeless individuals living on the streets of downtown Los Angeles (9 p.m. on Channel 9). Tom Seidman produced and financed this intimate portrayal of the city’s homeless with the help of a volunteer crew that often included street people.