TELEVISIONRemembering Ginger Rogers: Cable’s Turner Classic Movies...

TELEVISION

Remembering Ginger Rogers: Cable’s Turner Classic Movies will pay tribute to Ginger Rogers on Sunday by devoting its daytime schedule to the legendary actress and dancer, who died Tuesday at the age of 83. The tribute, which begins at 8 a.m., includes four of Rogers’ movies: 1935’s “Top Hat,” an Irving Berlin musical considered to be her definitive pairing with Fred Astaire; 1939’s “Bachelor Mother,” co-starring David Niven; “The Barkleys of Broadway,” a 1949 musical featuring the final film pairing of Rogers and Astaire, and “The First Traveling Saleslady,” a 1956 Old West tale co-starring Carol Channing, Clint Eastwood and James Arness. Another cable station, American Movie Classics, will dedicate its upcoming series on ballroom dancing, “Gotta Dance!,” to Rogers’ memory when it premieres May 10.

Birthday Plans: CBS Wednesday announced plans for “Saluting George Burns’ 100th Year,” a two-hour star-studded tribute featuring the entertainer’s first public performance in two years. The entertainer will reach the century milestone on Jan. 20 and CBS plans to air the program sometime during the 1995-96 season. The special, expected to feature 30 celebrity guest stars, will be taped in Los Angeles on Oct. 22 before a paying audience at the Pantages Theatre. Tickets are available by calling (310) 855-3661. Proceeds will go toward establishing a Burns and Allen Research Institute at Cedars Sinai Medical Center.

Sports Emmy Winners: CBS and the 1994 Winter Olympic Games were the big winners at the 16th annual Sports Emmy Awards, presented in New York Tuesday night. CBS won eight Emmys for its Olympics coverage, while cable’s Disney Channel won three for its Olympics-themed special “Lillehammer ‘94: 16 Days of Glory.” Other multiple winners at the Sports Emmys, which covered broadcasts from the 1994 calendar year, included cable’s ESPN, with five awards including outstanding live sports special for the “NHL Stanley Cup Finals.” ABC, NBC and Fox each took home four awards. Among them: “ABC’s NFL Monday Night Football” won as best live sports series, NBC’s Bob Costas was named top studio host, ABC’s Keith Jackson was named best play-by-play announcer, and Fox’s John Madden was named best commentator. In addition, the TV academy’s special sports lifetime achievement Emmy Award was presented posthumously to Howard Cosell, who died Sunday at the age of 77.

POP/ROCK

ASCAP Campaign: Songwriter Marilyn Bergman on Wednesday announced a campaign by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers to counter what it called legislative assaults on ASCAP members’ rights by the National Restaurant Assn. and other trade groups. Bergman is the chairman of ASCAP, which claims the House’s proposed “Fairness in Music Licensing Act of 1995” is “deceptive” and could result in a 20%-50% income loss to its members by permitting restaurants, bars and other commercial establishments to use copyrighted music without paying royalties. Bergman said the average cost to bars and restaurants that use ASCAP music is only $1.58 per day, while the loss of those payments would “cost songwriters, composers and music publishers tens of millions annually.”

Pop Chart: Live’s “Throwing Copper” climbs to the top of the nation’s pop chart exactly one year after it was released by Radioactive Records, a small L.A. label distributed by MCA Music Entertainment. The Pennsylvania rock group sold almost 118,000 copies in a week where total album sales slipped almost 11% at retail outlets across the country. The only new Top 10 entry is country singer John Michael Montgomery’s self-titled sophomore effort, which ranks No. 7 with approximately 71,000 sales.

JAZZ

Trumpet Sold: Dizzy Gillespie’s original bent-bell trumpet sold for $63,000 at Christie’s New York auction house on Tuesday, with part of the proceeds going to the Dizzy Gillespie Memorial Fund at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in New Jersey, where Gillespie died of cancer in 1993. The trumpet’s bell was bent 45 degrees when a dancer tripped while performing at a birthday party for the jazz great’s wife in the early 1950s. After the first horn was disfigured, Gillespie continued to use bent bells, saying he could “hear my mistakes quicker.”

QUICK TAKES

CNN’s “Larry King Live” will celebrate its 10th anniversary June 4-10, with a guest lineup including President Clinton, who will appear for an hour live from the White House on June 5 and take calls from viewers. . . . Radio station KCRW-FM (89.9) and KCET-TV Channel 28 will both air live coverage from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. today of Senate hearings on terrorism. . . . Nineteen couples from across the country were married on the Los Angeles set of Fox’s “Martin” on Monday as part of a promotion tied to the show’s upcoming season finale in which series stars Martin Lawrence (Martin) and Tisha Campbell (Gina) tie the knot. . . . “Love & War” co-stars Annie Potts, Suzie Plakson and Joanna Gleason will perform original sketches written by the “Love & War” writers and producers at a benefit for the California Women’s Law Center, tonight at 6:30 at the Directors Guild Theater in West Hollywood.