TELEVISION - Feb. 16, 1996

Soap Winners: NBC’s “Days of Our Lives” was the big winner at Wednesday night’s 12th annual Soap Opera Digest Awards in Beverly Hills, when the magazine’s readers voted the saga of the Horton and Brady families favorite show and also singled out three of its actors--Peter Reckell (Bo Brady), Louise Sorel (Vivian Alamain) and Alison Sweeney (Sami Brady)--for honors as “hottest” male star, best supporting actress and outstanding villainess, respectively. ABC’s “All My Children” also picked up four awards: Keith Hamilton Cobb and Sydney Penny (Noah and Julia) for “hottest romance”; Mark Consuelos (Mateo Santos), outstanding male newcomer; Robin Mattson (Janet Green), female scene stealer; and Kelly Ripa (Hayley Vaughan), best younger leading actress. Other winners included Robin Strasser, named outstanding lead actress for her role as Dorian Lord on ABC’s “One Life to Live,” and Maurice Benard, picked as best actor for playing Sonny Corinthos on ABC’s “General Hospital.”

*

KCAL Expands Sports Focus: Despite an uncertain future prompted by its pending sale by the Walt Disney Co., KCAL-TV Channel 9 on Thursday announced a new sports programming division to be headed by Don Corsini, a former KABC-TV Channel 7 program director who is credited with turning cable’s Prime Ticket Network from a fledgling, part-time regional sports network into a 24-hour-a-day sports programming powerhouse. Channel 9 General Manager David J. Woodcock said Corsini would usher the station into “a new era in local sports broadcasting.” With the addition of the California Angels games starting March 29, the station will have live sports programming every week of the year.

*

Trio of Oscar Nominees: “The Chicken From Outer Space,” which won an Oscar nomination on Tuesday for best animated short film, gets its TV debut on Sunday at 4 p.m. on the Cartoon Network’s “World Premiere Toons.” Written and directed by John R. Dilworth, the short features a cowardly dog named Courage who battles with a beady-eyed chicken from outer space. . . . James Cromwell, who picked up a surprise best supporting actor Oscar nomination for his role in “Babe,” will guest star Monday on the Fox comedy “Partners.” . . . Another surprise Oscar nominee, Michael Radford (“Il Postino”), directed tonight’s episode of NBC’s “Homicide: Life on the Street.”