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

TV & RADIO

More Diversity Pacts Expected: Agreements with Fox and CBS to increase diversity at the two networks are expected to be finalized in the next month, leaders of a multiethnic coalition said Thursday. The coalition, which includes NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and National Latino Media Council head Esteban Torres, met with the networks this week to press for diversity initiatives that would be similar to those already signed off on by NBC and ABC. CBS President Leslie Moonves said his network was putting final touches on the agreement, but that it would not be as far-reaching as NBC’s, which promises to push for the hiring of minority writers on that network’s second-year shows.

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Morning Move: Charlie Van Dyke, who took over the morning show on oldies station KRTH-FM (101.1) in August 1998, replacing the late Robert W. Morgan, will leave the station when his contract expires in six months. Van Dyke, who has been broadcasting much of the time from his home in Phoenix to be with his wife and six children, was asked by station management to move to Los Angeles full time, but declined, KRTH said. He will be working at the station’s L.A. studio for the remainder of his tenure, however. Speculation in radio circles has already begun that KRTH, which has seen its ratings dip nearly 25% in the past year, will seek a high-profile replacement to compete with the dial’s ever-increasing number of comedy-talk teams. But a station spokesman said plans are to keep the slot music-oriented.

MOVIES

Scripter Winner: In yet another possible Oscar indicator, Universal Pictures’ “The Hurricane”--based on wrongly imprisoned boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter’s autobiography, “The Sixteenth Round,” and on Sam Chaiton and Terry Swinton’s book “Lazarus and the Hurricane: The Untold Story of the Freeing of Rubin Hurricane Carter”--won the annual USC Scripter Award on Thursday for the best film adaptation of a book. The screenwriters were Armyan Bernstein and Dan Gordon. Carter, Chaiton, Swinton, Bernstein and Gordon will all be honored at a Union Station gala on March 4. Previous Scripter winners include “L.A. Confidential,” “The English Patient” and “Schindler’s List.”

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And Then There Were Seven: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the seven films being considered for this year’s visual effects Oscar: “The Matrix,” “The Mummy,” “Sleepy Hollow,” “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace,” “Stuart Little,” “Wild Wild West” and “The World Is Not Enough.” The list will be whittled to three when the Academy Awards nominations are announced Feb. 15.

STAGE

Opening Glitch: The main stage at North Hollywood’s new El Portal Center opened to its first paying audience, numbering 306, at a preview of “Over the River and Through the Woods” on Wednesday, a day after the first scheduled preview was canceled because of lighting problems. The 325 theatergoers who were turned away Tuesday will be accommodated at any other performance of the run, which officially opens tonight. The center is the largest new professional playhouse to open in Los Angeles since 1985.

QUICK TAKES

ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” just keeps on rolling. The program drew 33.7 million viewers on Wednesday--becoming the most watched TV episode this season--beating the combined viewership of rivals CBS, NBC and Fox. . . . Hillary Rodham Clinton’s visit Wednesday to “Late Show With David Letterman” gave the CBS program its best ratings since the Winter Olympics in February 1994. Letterman drew an estimated 11 million viewers, nearly triple the 4 million he averaged during the November ratings sweeps. . . . Barbra Streisand, interviewed after her Las Vegas New Year’s Eve performance, tells TV Guide in the Jan. 22 issue: “This is the last time I’m going to do any kind of concert. I don’t like performing; I feel like I’m in a beauty pageant, like I’m 18 and strutting around onstage.” . . . Madonna has canceled her plans to perform her rendition of Don McLean’s “American Pie” at the Jan. 30 Super Bowl, with her manager saying that the singer’s recording schedule left her insufficient time to prepare a performance. . . . Kellie Martin is leaving NBC’s “ER” later this season after two years as medical student Lucy Knight. . . . The animated Fox series “The Simpsons” gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today, during 11:30 a.m. ceremonies at 7021 Hollywood Blvd. . . . Columbia Pictures is working on a big-screen version of the 1965-68 Robert Culp-Bill Cosby TV series “I Spy,” with plans to develop the project as a “major action-comedy franchise.”