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

RADIO

Trading Beatles for Show Tunes: KGIL-AM (1260), the station that debuted a few months ago playing all Beatles music, on Saturday will switch its format to what is being billed as “L.A. Pops,” featuring show tunes from both Broadway and Hollywood musicals, as well as concert versions of those songs by performers such as Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand and Frank Sinatra. The changeover will start at 5 p.m. with the complete Broadway original cast album from “South Pacific.” “It’s going to be a Hollywood Bowl on the air,” said KGIL General Manager Saul Levine, who said the switch-over was necessary because the Beatles format failed to catch on with listeners. “We got a lot of telephone response and people from all over town said they were listening, but it didn’t show up in the ratings.” Levine is still building a sister station at 1650 AM, which will have a stronger signal than KGIL; that station, expected to be completed by late fall, was to have simulcast the Beatles format, but will now simulcast the show tunes.

Off the Air: Susan Estrich no longer has a weekend slot on KABC-AM (790). The USC law professor and liberal commentator had aired Saturdays and Sundays, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.--the slot now earmarked for Michael Jackson, who was removed two weeks ago from his mid-morning weekday show after 30 years. “We’re sorry to lose Susan,” said a KABC spokesman. Estrich said the station offered her another slot, but she wasn’t interested. “I’m delighted to have my weekends,” she said. As for Jackson’s start date on weekends, the station’s spokesman said that “tentatively we’re planning on the 26th.”

Therapists’ Ratings Battle: In the first ratings matchup on Los Angeles radio between advice therapists Laura Schlessinger on KFI-AM (640) and Toni Grant on KTZN-AM (710), Schlessinger not unexpectedly emerged the clear victor. According to Arbitron spring ratings for the noon-2 p.m. slot, Schlessinger drew a 6.4% share of listeners 12 and older, coming in second behind Spanish-language music station KLVE-FM (107.5) which had 6.9%. Grant meanwhile drew 0.8%, to rank 31st in the market. A pioneer of the advice format on KABC-AM (790) from 1975-90, Grant returned to Los Angeles radio March 24, airing from noon-3 p.m. On June 30, Schlessinger added a third hour to extend her original noon-2 p.m. broadcast.

THE ARTS

LACMA Education Program: In a $3.7-million, community-wide collaborative effort designed to boost arts education in Southern California’s public schools, the L.A. County Museum of Art has launched the Arts Education Initiative, a partnership involving L.A. Unified School District, four local universities and eight museums. Funded by the W.M. Keck, James Irvine and Maxwell H. Gluck foundations, the initiative has four major components--teacher training; the Maya Mobile, a truck designed as a Maya ruin that will visit schools; an educational gallery at LACMA; and a series of programs at local cultural and social service centers. A two-year developmental phase will begin in July, with full implementation of the program scheduled for 1999.

NEA Update: With the House having once again voted to eliminate the agency that Republican conservatives most love to hate--the National Endowment for the Arts--the effort to save it begins in a Senate subcommittee today. And the panel’s chairman, Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wa.), has announced he not only wants to keep the NEA alive, he plans to seek a modest increase in its current $99.5-million budget. Assuming the full Senate ultimately signs off on Gorton’s proposal, the two legislative chambers would have to work out their conflict over the agency later this year.

TELEVISION

CPB Faring Better: The House may have it out for the NEA, but the Corp. for Public Broadcasting’s budget has had smooth sailing there thus far. The House Appropriations labor subcommittee voted this week to fund the CPB at $300 million for fiscal year 2000. That would be an increase of $50 million over the already-approved fiscal year ’98 and ’99 budgets. The 1997 budget, meanwhile, calls for $260 million.

‘Barney’ Smoked: TV’s Barney ran into a bit of a snag this week when an actor playing the purple dinosaur suffered smoke inhalation when a cooling fan inside his 60-pound suit shorted out during a taping of the show in Dallas. There was no fire, but the unnamed actor inhaled the smoke while trying to get out of the suit, according to a spokeswoman for the Lyons Group, which produces the hugely popular PBS children’s show “Barney & Friends.” The actor was released from the hospital after a routine examination. After hearing local reports of the incident, scores of anxious parents called Lyons to say their children were worried their favorite dinosaur had been burned or, worse, was a fake.

QUICK TAKES

Former sitcom star Alan Thicke is going the game show route with “Pictionary,” a new half-hour TV version of the popular “charades on paper” game. The syndicated series, which will pit celebrity teams against each other, premieres Sept. 22, airing locally on KCAL-TV Channel 9, weekdays at 5:30 p.m. . . . Kirstie Alley and Parker Stevenson’s divorce case will be heard in California, a Maine judge has ruled. Alley had sought to have the case heard in Maine, where the couple owns two homes and where only wealth acquired during the marriage would be contested. California law divides all assets equally, favoring Stevenson, who is requesting spousal support. The couple have been married for 14 years. . . . Tom Cruise was named the “World’s Most Bankable Star” Thursday in a poll of 100 international film distributors. Mel Gibson ranked a close second, followed by Tom Hanks and Arnold Schwarzenegger (tied for third), and Harrison Ford and John Travolta (tied for fourth).