Radio Awards Look for TV Audience

If you’ve been craving an awards show fix, what with the cancellation of the Latin Grammys and the double postponement of the Emmys, ABC is coming to the rescue.

It’s only the Radio Music Awards, but it’s got presenters, performers and prizes--what else do you want? The three-hour telecast from Las Vegas begins at 8 tonight with Christina Aguilera as host and Elton John, Mariah Carey, Sugar Ray and Lifehouse among the scheduled entertainers.

Judging by the show’s ratings in its previous two outings, it would take some bizarre national hunger to give this program a lift. The first broadcast in 1999, carried on WB, drew only 3 million viewers and ranked 102nd among the week’s prime-time programs. Last year, on ABC, it inched up to 5.3 million viewers and 91st place.

Maybe it’s the presence of “radio” in the title that’s the problem. Although TV’s early stars came out of radio, it’s been rare in the past few decades that a radio star has had great success on television, as Laura Schlessinger, Rick Dees, Michael Jackson and Mark Thompson & Brian Phelps can testify.

This is really a music awards show, with categories geared to various radio formats (rock alternative, hip-hop, country, etc.). And maybe that’s been its problem: There are already plenty of other awards outlets to see the likes of such Radio Music Awards nominees as Limp Bizkit, Matchbox Twenty, Lenny Kravitz, Destiny’s Child, Tim McGraw and the Dixie Chicks.

There is one category for the people behind the radio mikes: Air Personality of the Year. Among the seven nominees this year are two local fixtures: the morning team of Mark & Brian from KLOS-FM (95.5) and afternoon deejay Sean Valentine of KIIS-FM (102.7).

Surf Report

MOVIES

It’s definitely the Halloween season at AMC. Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle appear in Mel Brooks’ hilarious “Young Frankenstein” (7 and 10:30 p.m); sandwiched between are Colin Clive and Boris Karloff in the original 1931 horror classic “Frankenstein” (9 p.m.).

SERIES

A special episode of the NBC series “Third Watch” gets a repeat showing at 9 p.m. on A&E.; Mixing reality and drama, this program includes cast members interviewing their real-life counterparts, and honors the emergency personnel working at the site of the World Trade Center in New York.

SPECIALS

“Women Rock! Girls & Guitars” (9 p.m., Lifetime), a benefit concert at the Wiltern in L.A. to raise money for the fight against breast cancer, features performances by Mary J. Bilge, the Dixie Chicks, Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris and Pat Benatar.