TELEVISIONClashing Messages: The Rev. Jesse Jackson found...

TELEVISION

Clashing Messages: The Rev. Jesse Jackson found himself in the middle of a dust-up with Great Britain’s leadership this week after Channel 4, the British commercial network, booked his prerecorded Christmas Day message attacking British racism at the same hour the annual Christmas greeting from Queen Elizabeth is slated to air on the BBC and ITV. Jackson said Wednesday that the 3 p.m. scheduling for both messages on the two British networks was “a matter of marketing” by Channel 4 over which he had no control. He said he was asked by the commercial network to record the message to the people of Britain and that it certainly “was not intended to be an insult to the queen.” Jackson said he is appealing to the British “to stop the intolerance,” which he blames for five deaths in the United Kingdom during the year. Home Secretary Michael Howard, the Cabinet member responsible for law and order, was quoted by the Sunday Times as saying, “We have nothing to learn from Mr. Jesse Jackson on these issues.” Jackson said he wants to remind people that “Mary and Joseph were a homeless couple, and there are people in the same condition in Birmingham; Mary, an unwed mother, would have been an outcast.”

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Leno Returns a Favor: NBC late-night host Jay Leno is about to turn up on ABC, reportedly as an auto mechanic. Leno recently taped a cameo on ABC’s “Home Improvement” for airing early next year. “Tim Allen has done a number of funny bits on ‘The Tonight Show’ with Jay, and he’s always wanted Jay to do something on his show,” an ABC spokeswoman said. Leno’s not ignoring his employer, though: He has a couple of cameos in two NBC series--”Friends” and “Mad About You”--that will also air early in the new year.

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What an Act to Follow: ABC will use TV’s highest-rated annual event, the Super Bowl, to deliver an audience for “Extreme,” a new action-adventure series that has been described as “Baywatch” on the ski slopes. “Extreme,” shot in Park City, Utah, stars James Brolin as the head of a mountain search-and-rescue team. The Jan. 29 premiere, immediately after Super Bowl XXIX, will air a full month before the series appears in its regular time slot on Thursdays at 8 p.m., replacing “Matlock.” But the huge initial audience “Extreme” most likely will receive is no guarantee of success. The last hit series to launch on any network after the Super Bowl was “The Wonder Years” in 1988.

POP/ROCK

Doggy Dogg’s World: There was good news Wednesday for rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg when Anchorage, Alaska, Mayor Rick Mystrom rejected concerns about the likelihood of profanity and sexually explicit lyrics and said the performer’s Dec. 30 concert could go on as scheduled. Mystrom said he was “not in a position to legislate morality.” Then there was the bad news: Sheriff’s deputies in Lake Charles, La., who had gone to the rapper’s hotel room to serve papers in a civil lawsuit, said they smelled marijuana. They arrested the performer under his legal name of Calvin Broadus and also took in three of his band members. All were freed after posting $2,000 bond each on misdemeanor charges. The group canceled a Wednesday night concert it had scheduled in Lake Charles, where ticket sales reportedly were slow. Then early Thursday, five people were arrested after a brawl. Authorities said some were believed to be band members. Broadus, who was not among them, has a bigger legal problem in Los Angeles, where he is facing trial on charges of murder next month. . . . And in another case, rap star Tupac Shakur, recovering from gunshot wounds, was told by a New York state appellate judge Wednesday that he has to come up with $3-million bail by today or surrender for sentencing on a first-degree sexual abuse conviction. Shakur was shot five times and robbed of $40,000 in jewelry on Nov. 30 near Times Square while jury deliberations were still going on.

QUICK TAKES

Entertainer Liza Minnelli was released from Century City Hospital on Thursday, reportedly recovering nicely from hip-replacement surgery. . . . Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee was booked on an abuse charge Wednesday after his girlfriend, Bobbie Brown, flagged down a sheriff’s cruiser in Malibu and said Lee had beaten her, a sheriff’s spokesman said. Lee was freed on $50,000 bail about three hours later. . . . Dr. Art Ulene, former health reporter on NBC’s “Today” show, will reappear next month to do a series on weight loss.