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

TELEVISION/RADIO

Williams Replacedas NPR ‘Talk’ Host

Juan Williams, host of National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation” midday call-in show, is out after only 18 months as host. His last program will be Aug. 30.

The audience grew 10% and added stations during his tenure, the Washington Post reports. But it was dropped by WNYC in New York City--erasing it from the nation’s biggest market. That his style was perceived as “distracted” didn’t help his case.

The four-day-a-week program is heard on 180 stations by 2.2 million listeners a week.

Bruce Drake, NPR’s vice president for news and information, said that the heavy workload made it difficult for the ubiquitous Williams to continue outside gigs as a TV commentator and author.

Williams will become a senior correspondent for NPR news, appearing twice monthly on “Morning Edition” and “Weekend Edition.” He’ll be replaced in the interim by “Weekly Edition’s” Neal Conan.

UPN’s ‘Manhunt’Is Reported to FCC

A contestant on “Manhunt,” a new UPN reality series, has joined Bob Jaffe, a former executive producer of the show, in charging that the outcome was rigged.

Jacqueline Kelly, a 36-year-old business consultant who was first to get the boot, asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate if “Manhunt” broke any federal game show laws.

“Manhunt,” which debuted early this month, sent 13 people on a journey through Kauai while being stalked by three gun-wielding “hunters.” Kelly claims Paramount Television Group tried to manipulate several challenges. And a producer, she added, physically prevented her from coming to the aid of an injured contestant, which led fellow contestants to vote her off the show. The winner will receive $250,000.

“Who’s going to regulate reality TV game shows when you have innocent people who enter them thinking they have a fair chance to win money?” Kelly said.

Paramount has issued a statement saying that segments had been re-shot in Los Angeles, but denied that it affected the outcome The studio also cited a disclaimer stating that dramatic scenes had been included “for entertainment purposes only.”

Last week, Jaffe claimed that he was fired for refusing to construct dramatic plot lines between players and said the rules were changed midstream.

David Fiske, an FCC spokesman, said the agency would look into the matter.

MOVIES

Blasting Hollywood’s ‘Cultural Imperialism’

Novelist Robert Harris, whose “Enigma”--a thriller about World War II code-breakers--has been turned into a movie starring Kate Winslet, lashed out at the “sheer stupidity” of Hollywood films at the Edinburgh Film Festival Sunday.

“No matter what the situation or where the film is supposed to be set, an American has to be central, to be seen as the good guy or save the day in some way,” he was quoted as saying in the British newspaper the Guardian. “It’s a form of cultural imperialism.”

Though his “Enigma” was intellectually demanding for a mainstream movie, he said, his book “Fatherland” was a victim of Hollywood dumbing down. That came after a studio survey in which the 15-to 21-year-old target group “didn’t even know there had been a second world war,” he said.