RADIO/TVPBS Teams With Reader’s Digest: Public television,...

RADIO/TV

PBS Teams With Reader’s Digest: Public television, looking for new sources of funding in the face of shrinking federal support, said Monday in Washington that it will team with Reader’s Digest to develop family-oriented programs and spinoff products. Reader’s Digest Assn. Inc. of Pleasantville, N.Y., is to invest up to $75 million over five years to develop TV programs that would be distributed by the Public Broadcasting Service. Potentially lucrative home videos and CD-ROMs are expected to be spun off from the TV shows, and Reader’s Digest will get an undisclosed percentage of gross revenues, said spokeswoman Lesta Cordil. PBS is the primary distributor of such national programs as “Sesame Street” and “Masterpiece Theatre” to 345 public TV stations.

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Stern Warning: There he is . . . Howard Stern? The shock jock has Miss America pageant officials peeved with his plan to call his new book “Miss America,” complete with a cover photo of him in women’s clothes and makeup. Lawyers for the pageant wrote the book’s publisher to say Stern’s latest literary effort infringes on the pageant’s good name and contains “photographs that have been called tasteless.” HarperCollins attorneys said the title of the book is based on a facetious theme running through the book that Stern could be the next Miss America. The book is due out next Tuesday, but on his radio show Monday, Stern and publisher Judith Regan said they were hoping to get a few New York stores to start selling it today.

ART

On the Block: New York’s big-ticket fall auction season begins tonight at Christie’s with a sale of Impressionist and modern art. The two priciest items--valued at upward of $10 million apiece--are paintings by Pablo Picasso: “The Mirror,” a 1932 abstract image of the artist’s mistress, Marie-Therese Walter, and “Boy With White Collar,” a 1905 Rose Period portrait of a young circus performer. Next in value--with an estimated selling price of $7 million to $10 million--is Henri Matisse’s 6-by-3-foot paper cutout “Chinese Fish,” from the estate of Victoria H. Sperry, a Los Angeles artist and collector.

STAGE

Big on Broadway: Terrence McNally’s “Master Class,” a hit at the Mark Taper Forum earlier this year, drew mostly favorable reviews on Broadway. Vincent Canby of the New York Times wrote that McNally created “rich, vivid, satisfying theater from material that sounds as if it should be no more than a sketch.” Linda Winer-Bernheimer of Newsday found “an intoxicating showcase for the remarkable Zoe Caldwell” and “wicked fun.” Some critics found flaws in the script, but most agreed with USA Today that “the total package is blazingly theatrical.”

POP/ROCK

Festival Forming: Anita Baker, Kenny Loggins, Jon Anderson and Kitaro are among the artists scheduled to perform in a World Music Festival on June 22 at the Los Angeles Coliseum, festival organizers said Monday. The non-profit event, which will be televised live via satellite throughout the world, is being put together to focus attention on the need to empower young people and end violence, according to Steve Robertson, founder of the Humanity Federation and executive director of the event.

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He Gets Some Satisfaction: A new performing arts center at his old London school will be named after Mick Jagger. The Dartford Borough Council recently decided to name the center after the Rolling Stones singer, although some council members said they would have preferred a more clean-cut namesake. Jagger said he was “deeply satisfied” by the choice. The $160,000 conversion of the old gymnasium at Dartford Grammar School will include a recording studio. “The school record shows clearly that Mr. Jagger had an unblemished record during his time here,” said headmaster Tony Smith. “He was successful academically and left to take up a degree place at the London School of Economics.”

QUICK TAKES

NBC daytime drama “Days of Our Lives” celebrates its 30th anniversary with the telecast of its 7,675th episode on Wednesday. . . . South Coast Repertory has slated the West Coast premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher’s “Three Viewings,” a trio of monologues set in a small-town funeral home, for the theater’s Second Stage, Jan. 26-Feb. 26. . . . After 12 years, Bill Headline steps down as bureau chief of CNN’s Washington bureau effective Jan. 1 but will continue as a CNN vice president in a reorganization announced by CNN President Tom Johnson. Named as Headline’s successor as vice president and Washington bureau chief was Frank Sesno. Peggy Soucy was promoted to deputy bureau chief and chief of Washington bureau news operations.