Ailing ‘Jesse Jackson’ Gets a Makeover : Television: The low-rated syndicated program is being revamped ‘to let Jesse be Jesse.’

When Adam Clayton Powell III became the co-executive producer of the “Jesse Jackson” talk show last Friday, he knew changes had to be made to the low-rated syndicated program.

“We made the decision over last weekend to dynamite the TelePrompTer,” said Powell, who previously worked as a producer of the “CBS Morning News” and vice president of news and information programming for National Public Radio. “We’re going to let Jesse be Jesse.”

The absence of the TelePrompTer won’t be the only difference when the program’s fifth episode airs Sunday at 11 p.m. on KCAL Channel 9 and at midnight on KFMB Channel 8 in San Diego. The show will also have a new set and Powell will have changed “the entire way the show is produced.”

“We’re now doing a one-hour prime-time show with no script,” Powell said. “It’s like walking a wire with no net. You really have to have faith in the ability of your host to carry it off, and he did it (in the episode taped) this week.”

Sunday’s topic is the rise in the murder rate, which will also include examinations of bias in capital punishment, the ease of purchasing automatic weapons and the effectiveness of government drug policies. Guests include Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove); attorney William Kunstler; Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa. The program will also contain a segment on President Bush’s veto of the 1990 Civil Rights Act.

“Jesse Jackson” has been unable to translate its host’s public familiarity into high ratings, averaging a 1.6 rating for its first three shows, meaning it is being seen in about 1.5 million households. The series is syndicated by Warner Bros. Domestic Television to 130 stations. None has dropped the show, according to a Warner Bros. spokeswoman.

The ratings are even lower on KCAL. The show’s debut here Sept. 30 attracted only 4% of the available audience, about 95,000 homes. The audience dropped to about 45,000 for the Oct. 7 and 21 installments, and to about 15,000 on Oct. 14, when it aired at 11 p.m.

The station initially had scheduled “Jesse Jackson” for Sundays at 5 p.m., but the program has had to be shifted three times in its first five weeks because of sports telecasts. KCAL will be moving the show to 9 p.m. Sundays beginning Nov. 4, where it will be opposite Fox’s “Married . . . With Children”--often the top-rated program in the Los Angeles market--and movies on ABC, CBS and NBC.

Powell has no objections to the new time slot.

“I’m perfectly happy to be on Sundays at 9,” Powell said. “I think we have a strong show and can carve out an audience there.”

“Jesse Jackson” is entering a crucial stage with the onset of the November ratings sweeps next week, one of four periods of the year used to set advertising rates. The November sweeps are often the shaking-out point for new syndicated shows.

The first “Jesse Jackson” sweeps show is titled “Racism, Institutions and Politics,” and the scheduled guests include Louisiana state Rep. David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, who received 44% of the vote in a losing bid for the U.S. Senate on Oct. 6.

Powell succeeded Michael Linder, who said that he voluntarily stepped down to work on two series projects for network TV.