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

TV & MOVIES

Sharing the Riches: In the battle of the millionaire-themed game shows, ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” conquered the new Fox knockoff “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?,” according to Nielsen Media Research. From 8 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, when the two shows aired head-to-head, ABC averaged 28.7 million viewers, while Fox averaged 11.1 million. However, in “Multi-Millionaire?’s” second hour, without its “Millionaire” competition, Fox’s ratings rose to an average of 20.9 million viewers. That was good enough to prompt Fox to quickly schedule a pared-down hourlong encore airing of the show for Tuesday at 8 p.m., when it will again go up against ABC’s “Millionaire.”

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Goodbye, Georgia: Courtney Thorne-Smith is leaving Fox’s “Ally McBeal” at the end of the season to pursue her own sitcom. Her decision follows the recently announced departure of Gil Bellows, who plays Billy, the on-screen estranged husband of Thorne-Smith’s character Georgia. However, both actors are expected to visit the series next season in guest appearances.

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Hacker Didn’t Break Oscar Secrecy: Film critic Harry Knowles thought he’d scored a great coup by posting what he billed as an advance list of the Oscar nominees Monday night on his Web site, https://www.aint-it-cool-news.com. But though he successfully named all 20 acting nominees and four of the five best picture picks, he missed six of the seven nods for the surprisingly successful “The Cider House Rules.” Knowles apparently went through the film academy’s web site to tap into publicity files created in preparation for Tuesday morning’s announcement. However, what Knowles obtained was only the best guesses of the academy’s publicists. “Our firewall of secrecy remains intact,” academy executive director Bruce Davis told Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert, who has had Knowles on his syndicated TV show as a guest critic. Davis said the academy “never puts voting information in a computer and neither does [vote tabulator] Price Waterhouse.” An academy spokesman said Thursday the organization was investigating whether Knowles obtained the material illegally.

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Latino Kids Fare: Children’s cable network Nickelodeon has slated eight new series for next season, and half are created by and/or based on Latinos. “Taina,” from producer-creator Maria Perez Brown, follows a Puerto Rican student at Manhattan’s School of Performing Arts; “The Brothers Garcia,” from writer-producer Jeff Valdez, follows the adventures of four Latino siblings; “Dora, the Explorer” is an animated interactive series (there will also be an online version) about a 7-year-old bilingual Latina who lives inside a computer with a monkey named Boots; and the animated “Invader Zim,” created by Mexican American comic book writer-artist Jhonen Vasquez, follows an alien who spies on Earth by posing as an elementary school student.

QUICK TAKES

An original 1957 “Peanuts” cartoon strip hand-drawn and signed by the late Charles Schulz is being offered on the new auction Web site, https://www.LA411Auction.com. . . . Lawyer-turned-professor Anita Hill joins Court TV’s daily live 9:30 a.m. program “Crier Today” on Friday as a regular contributor.