TELEVISIONBreakstone Joins KCBS: Political and investigative reporter...

TELEVISION

Breakstone Joins KCBS: Political and investigative reporter Linda Breakstone has left KABC-TV Channel 7 for KCBS-TV Channel 2, where she will be political editor and report on local and state politics. Breakstone, who has been at KABC since 1990, was an investigative reporter for the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner.

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“Baseball” Scores High: PBS drew more than twice its average number of viewers Sunday for the first night of Ken Burns much-touted “Baseball” series, with an estimated 4.8-million households tuning into the two-hour series opener. But the show’s overnight ratings stopped short of a home run, coming up far below the phenomenal numbers Burns earned for “The Civil War” in 1990. In the 24 markets sampled in 1990, “The Civil War” premiere drew a 13% market share, whereas the “Baseball” opener drew only an 8% share of those markets.

MOVIES

Branching Out: Michael Stipe, lead singer and lyricist of the popular rock band R.E.M., has signed a two-year deal with New Line Cinema to produce and develop feature films. As part of the deal, Stipe has formed a new Los Angeles-based production company called Single Cell Pictures. The company’s mission is to develop “edgy and youth-oriented films while discovering and cultivating new creative talent.” Stipe, whose hit songs include “Losing My Religion” and “Everybody Hurts,” said he will seek out “smart and irreverent material” and “non-traditional avenues to explore the medium.”

THE ARTS

New Arts Committee Named: President Clinton acted Monday to pump new life into a government-arts partnership, naming 32 private citizens and his wife, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Committee members include such entertainment luminaries as composer Quincy Jones, singer-actress Rita Moreno and violinist Isaac Stern. The committee will be chaired by former Indiana Rep. John Brademas, who was a co-sponsor of the original legislation that created the committee under then-President Ronald Reagan in 1982. The three vice chairpeople of the committee, which languished under Reagan’s successor George Bush, include Warner Bros. chairman Terry Semel, longtime Washington arts advocate Peggy Cooper Cafritz and Cynthia Perrin Schneider of Georgetown University. Committee members will have their first formal meeting with the Clintons on Wednesday.

POP/ROCK

Farm Aid VII: Country music opened its arms to Dixieland, comedy, hard rock and Cajun-flavored Zydeco music at the New Orleans Superdome on Sunday during the 10-hour Farm Aid VII, the annual concert to raise money and support for America’s farmers. Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin opened the show, and performers included singers Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and David Allan Coe; alternative rockers Spin Doctors and Gin Blossoms; the Neville Brothers; Zydeco rocker Wayne Toups; Dixieland clarinetist Pete Fountain; trumpeter Al Hirt, and comedian Paul Rodriguez. Police estimated nearly 20,000 attended at least some part of the concert.

QUICK TAKES

The three-part series “Gay in America” airs tonight through Thursday on “NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw.” The series is billed as the first on nightly network news to look in-depth at the issues confronting gays and lesbians. . . . When the home video version of Barbra Streisand’s recent concert tour hits stores on Sept. 27, Tower Music & Video won’t be selling the videotape. Tower has canceled all orders for “Barbra: The Concert” to protest an exclusive deal in which rival chain Blockbuster Video will get videos containing a bonus Streisand song not available to other dealers. . . . Entertainer Bob Hope is among the presenters scheduled for tonight’s Multicultural Motion Picture Assn. Diversity Awards, taking place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Actress Diahann Carroll will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, and director Oliver Stone will pick up the Pacesetter Award. . . . Prominent Santa Monica-based architect Frank O. Gehry has received the first annual Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, an annual $250,000 award established by the late actress Lillian Gish to recognize outstanding individual contributions to the arts. . . . Country singer George Jones, 63, was released from a Nashville hospital on Sunday after undergoing triple bypass surgery on Sept. 12.