Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

TELEVISION

Commercials, Beatles Style: American TV audiences will see 35 minutes less of “The Beatles Anthology” than British viewers due to cuts made to accommodate American commercial breaks. At a London press launch for the series, which premieres Nov. 19 on ABC, series director Geoff Wonfor said that many of the cuts were made during song performances. “Over the six hours, the longest we go [in America] without a break is eight minutes,” he said. “I don’t know how Americans stand to watch TV.” The video version of “Anthology,” due in April, will contain three hours more material than any televised version. . . . Meanwhile, about those U.S. commercials: None will be for meat or alcohol products. At the same press conference, director and writer Bob Smeaton said that with Paul McCartney and his wife, Linda, well-known vegetarian crusaders and Ringo Starr a recovering alcoholic, the group banned such sponsors worldwide. But ABC spokeswoman Anne Riccitelli said the restrictions were made in the United States voluntarily by the network so as not to embarrass either the musicians or the sponsors. *

His Views: What does Walter Cronkite, the dean of CBS newsmen and a former member of the network’s board of directors, think about the controversy over CBS pulling Sunday’s “60 Minutes” interview with a former tobacco company executive who criticized the industry? Cronkite, speaking Thursday on CNBC’s “Tim Russert” show, said broadcasters and publishers “who permit such pressure to be exerted clearly are thinking purely of their pocketbooks . . . and not thinking of the people’s right and necessity to know, and I abhor it.” CBS attorneys deleted the interview, apparently because they feared it violated a non-disclosure contract the executive had with his employer.

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Early Cable Winners: HBO got off to an early lead for the cable industry’s highest awards this week when it won nine of 26 announced CableACE Awards, in so-called “craft and international” categories including directing, writing, editing, score and costumes. Among HBO’s honors were wins in the comedy series writing and directing categories for “The Larry Sanders Show,” the only double winner thus far. The remaining 17 CableACE winners will be announced in ceremonies in Los Angeles Dec. 1 and 2.

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Deja Vu Fridays: In what CBS is calling a move toward “a more traditional Friday night,” the network will revive “Due South,” the humorous hourlong show about a morally rigid Canadian Mountie paired with a hardened American detective, which was canceled by the network last year. The program, which had remained in production for Canadian TV, will return to CBS on Dec. 8, airing Fridays at 8 p.m. in the space recently vacated by “Dweebs” and “The Bonnie Hunt Show.” Also starting Dec. 8, Dick Van Dyke’s “Diagnosis Murder” will return in the 9-10 p.m. Friday slot, pushing “Picket Fences” an hour later to 10 p.m. The dark drama “American Gothic,” which had been airing Fridays at 10 p.m., will leave the schedule, but CBS said it will return after the first of the year in a different time period. Meanwhile, the network has picked up first-year Monday night sitcom “Can’t Hurry Love,” ordering nine additional episodes to round out a full season.

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Viewing Notes: Fox has ordered nine more episodes of its Wednesday night drama “Party of Five,” bringing the show’s second season to a full 22 episodes. . . . In a bid to boost the show’s poor ratings, former “Major Dad” star Gerald McRaney has been added to CBS’ “Central Park West,” playing a media mogul who takes over Communique magazine. McRaney begins work on the series Tuesday. . . . Former “General Hospital” stars Finola Hughes (Anna Devane Scorpio) and Tristan Rogers (Robert Scorpio) return to the ABC program next week as part of an AIDS-related story line involving their characters’ 18-year-old daughter.

ART

A New York Hit: Los Angeles artist Tim Hawkinson has a big hit in his first solo show in New York, which closes today at Ace Gallery in SoHo. Packing in up to 800 people a day and described by critics as “a spellbinding event,” “a sublimely ridiculous meditation on the human condition” and “wildly flaky, idiotically clever and absolutely Californian,” the exhibition fills the huge gallery with such wonders as inflated latex molds of the artist’s own body and his bathroom, a whistling rawhide skeleton, a green vinyl bagpipe-like lung that wheezes and a machine that cranks out Hawkinson’s signature.

QUICK TAKES

Actor Sean Connery is the recipient of this year’s Cecil B. DeMille award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., recognizing his “outstanding contribution to the entertainment field.” The award will be presented Jan. 21 during the annual Golden Globe Awards. . . . Esa-Pekka Salonen, music director of the L.A. Philharmonic, was honored in London by Britain’s Prince Charles this week, who dubbed Salonen a Fellow of the Royal College of Music. Former Beatle Paul McCartney also received the title at the same ceremony. . . . Original “Star Trek” cast members including William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols and Majel Barrett Roddenberry, will take part in “Trek: 30,” a salute to the show’s 30th anniversary, today and Sunday at the Pasadena Center. . . . Canadian pop star Bryan Adams will sign his self-titled book featuring his writings and a collection of photographs, today at 2 p.m. at West Hollywood’s Book Soup.