ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTS FROM THE TIMES, NEWS SERVICES AND THE NATION’S PRESS.

INTERNET

Aspen Festival Opens: The fifth annual U.S. Comedy Arts Festival gets underway in Aspen, Colo., today, but don’t expect to see the festivities on TV. Although many festival events had previously aired on cable’s HBO and Comedy Central, this year non-Aspenites will have to settle for Internet coverage. The Excite site (at https://www.excite.com) will feature several live events from the five-day festival, including Saturday’s 8-9:30 p.m. presentation of the American Film Institute’s Star Award to Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David and Friday’s 9:30-11 p.m. “Ben Stiller Show” reunion featuring Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. Additional festival coverage on the site will include behind-the-scenes reports and conversations with various comedians. HBO, which chose not to tape this year’s events for TV because of logistical reasons, is still the festival’s sponsor.

TELEVISION

‘Family Friendly’ Pleas: Buoyed by the support of Steve Allen and Shirley Jones, the Parents Television Council on Tuesday launched the second wave of a $2-million national advertising campaign to promote more “family-friendly” television. A full-page ad, which appeared in USA Today, expressed concern about what proponents called the “filth, vulgarity, sex and violence” in television. The ad--which included Allen’s picture--asked readers to appeal to advertisers to stop sponsoring offensive shows and to support more “decent, family-safe” programming. Mark Honig, the organization’s executive director, said the group received more than 150,000 responses when the first ads ran last September.

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CBS’ Durable Dozen: Touting the value of stability, CBS has renewed a dozen of its current series for next season, with “Cosby,” “Everybody Loves Raymond,” “Becker,” “King of Queens,” “JAG,” “Touched by an Angel,” “Candid Camera,” “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” “Nash Bridges,” “48 Hours” and both editions of “60 Minutes” all coming back for another year. The network is still negotiating on two other shows: “Walker, Texas Ranger” and “Chicago Hope.” CBS hopes the announcement will allow the network to get an early jump on selling advertising time for next fall, a process that usually begins in May.

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ABC Orders: ABC has ordered 13 episodes of a Joan Cusack comedy from producers Carsey-Werner (“Roseanne”) with a targeted fall air date, and has also given a six-episode commitment to an hourlong sketch comedy show for the summer. The later program, from Disney’s Touchstone Television and “Waterboy” producer Robert Simonds, is expected to air Saturday nights at 10, preceding the similarly themed “Saturday Night Live” and “Mad TV” on rival networks NBC and Fox.

STAGE

Illness Ends the Show: Nicole Kidman’s hit Broadway show, “The Blue Room,” closed its three-month run a week early because the actress is suffering from a lingering bronchial infection. “I am truly devastated not to complete the last week of the run and deeply apologize to the people who have planned to attend those performances,” Kidman said in a statement Monday. The play--which spawned a media furor of sorts because it includes a brief glimpse of the actress naked--had been scheduled to end its sold-out run on Sunday. Kidman also missed four performances last week because of the infection.

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Death of the Broadway Newcomers?: High ticket prices on Broadway are keeping unproven ideas out of theaters, Arthur Miller says. “The real theater of America is either off-Broadway or out there in the country,” the “Death of a Salesman” playwright said during an appearance Monday at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Music Hall. “When you’re paying $60 to $100 a ticket, you want an orchestra you can tap your foot to. You don’t want to pay those prices to see a show you might not like. . . . The fact is . . . that there are no new plays being written for Broadway today.”

FILM

Hollywood Honors: The 3-year-old Hollywood Film Festival will add two sets of awards to its Aug. 4-9 program. Through a partnership with the Hollywood Video chain, this year’s festival will include the Hollywood Film Awards, in which the public will vote (at the chain’s stores nationwide and on https://www.Reel.com) on categories including the year’s best actors, director and screenwriter. In addition, the festival will inaugurate the Hollywood Discovery Awards, recognizing independent filmmakers.

QUICK TAKES

KFWB-AM (980) will air an audio feed of CNN’s “Larry King Live” weeknights at 8, starting March 15. . . . The Chicago Film Critics Assn. weighed in Monday with its picks for 1998’s best film fare, naming “Saving Private Ryan” best film, “Life Is Beautiful” best foreign film, Terrence Malick (“The Thin Red Line”) best director and Ian McKellen (“Gods and Monsters”) and Cate Blanchett (“Elizabeth”) for the top acting honors. . . . Cable’s TV Land posted a 41% increase in its February ratings over a year ago, boosting the 3-year-old network to 10th place among cable’s highest rated networks. . . . Mezzo-soprano Suzanna Guzman, an associate artist of the L.A. Music Center Opera, has signed on as host of KKGO-FM’s (105.1) “The Sunday Evening Opera,” airing Sundays from 8 p.m. to midnight. The East L.A. native’s first broadcast airs this weekend, with Bizet’s “Carmen.” Guzman also co-hosts KKGO’s “L.A. Opera Notes” program, which airs Sundays at noon. . . . CBS has scheduled “Joan of Arc,” its miniseries starring film actress Leelee Sobieski (“A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries”) in the title role, for May 16 and 18.