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

POP/ROCK

KROQ Shows on Sale Today: Tickets for the eighth annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas benefit concerts Dec. 5 and 6 at the Universal Amphitheatre will go on sale today at 7 p.m. at Ticketmaster outlets. The lineups: Fiona Apple, Chumbawamba, Jamiroquai, Jane’s Addiction, Matchbox 20, Sarah McLachlan, Smash Mouth, Sneaker Pimps and the Verve on Dec. 5; the Aquabats, David Bowie, Everclear, Green Day, Live, Portishead, Save Ferris, Sugar Ray, 311 and Third Eye Blind on Dec. 6. Tickets are $35 each, plus service charge, and a two-ticket limit will be imposed. Ticket-buyers must choose one show only.

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Fans Mourn Hutchence: Friends and fans are mourning Australian rocker Michael Hutchence, whose death Saturday in an exclusive Sydney hotel remains a mystery. Flowers, cards and burning candles were placed on the pavement outside the Ritz-Carlton, where the lead singer for INXS died. Police said the singer had made a phone call to a friend at 9 a.m., three hours before he was found dead by a hotel employee. But a police spokeswoman refused to comment on reports that Hutchence had been hanging from his own belt, saying only that it was “now a matter for the coroner.”

TELEVISION

Rosie’s Reign: Sometimes a little begging and pleading works magic. Rosie O’Donnell’s tear-soaked interview with Barbra Streisand last Friday, coming after months of groveling by O’Donnell, resulted in O’Donnell’s highest ratings since her syndicated daytime talk show premiered in June 1996. The interview, which aired locally on KNBC-TV Channel 4, scored 29% of the available audience, drawing even more viewers than O’Donnell’s highly touted chat with Tom Cruise last December. The Streisand interview also dealt a double knockout blow to Oprah Winfrey, whose show airs on KABC-TV Channel 7 at 3 p.m. against O’Donnell’s in Los Angeles. Winfrey’s show Friday, which focused on actor-director Clint Eastwood and his new film, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” drew only 7% of the audience, resulting in Winfrey’s lowest ratings since O’Donnell’s show premiered.

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Michael and Family: KNBC-TV Channel 4 anchor-reporter Chuck Henry will have an exclusive interview today at 4, 6 and 11 p.m. with Debbie Rowe, the pregnant wife of singer Michael Jackson. Although Jackson does not participate in the interview, he is shown playing with the couple’s baby, Prince.

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Ratings Feast: KCBS-TV Channel 2 is continuing to feast on high ratings because of its continuing investigative reports on conditions at Los Angeles County restaurants. Sunday’s 11 p.m. news, which focused on some of the county’s most poorly kept eateries, scored 31% of the available audience and delivered the newscast’s highest ratings in a decade. The previous record was set the previous Sunday, when KCBS launched the restaurant series. KCBS will continue the reports on the restaurants at least through Wednesday, the last day of the November sweeps. Largely because of the investigative series, KCBS is now battling KABC-TV Channel 7 for second place behind KNBC-TV Channel 4 in the sweeps, which stations use to set advertiser rates. KCBS has also taken its promotion to the skies. The station hired a plane to fly over Saturday’s USC-UCLA game at the Coliseum with a banner telling spectators to tune in on Sunday to the 11 p.m. news.

ART

‘Exiles’ Honored: “Exiles and Emigres: The Flight of European Artists From Hitler,” the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s landmark traveling show organized by curator Stephanie Barron, has won two first-place awards from the International Assn. of Art Critics. The exhibition came out on top in “best show originating at a U.S. museum outside New York City” and “best museum catalog” in the association’s 1996-97 competition. The Whitney Museum of American Art’s “Making Mischief: Dada Invades New York” was deemed “best show originating in a New York museum” and finished second in the “best museum catalog” division.

QUICK TAKES

New York City Ballet principal dancer Merrill Ashley will retire from the company after 31 years when he dances his farewell performance tonight during the company’s season-opening show at Lincoln Center. . . . Conductor James Levine will succeed the late Sergiu Celibidache as music director of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. . . . A memorial scholarship fund in the name of studio guitarist Tommy Tedesco, who died Nov. 10, has been set up to help aspiring musicians pay for instruments and lessons. . . . Ray Liotta will play Frank Sinatra in the HBO movie “The Rat Pack,” which will be filmed next year. . . . Jerry Van Dyke, who appeared this season on the canceled ABC series “You Wish,” will segue to another ABC sitcom, “Teen Angel.” Van Dyke previously co-starred on ABC’s “Coach.”. . . Steve Friedman, former executive producer of NBC’s “Today” show, was named vice president and station manager for WCBS-TV, the CBS station in New York City.