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

TELEVISION

What a Week: Thanks to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Jan. 12 appearance, CBS’ “Late Show With David Letterman” beat NBC’s “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” in the ratings last week, Letterman’s first weekly win over Leno since 1995. The CBS show averaged nearly 6 million viewers, a 57% increase over the same week last year. The first lady’s visit drew more than 11 million viewers, “Late Show’s” best ratings since its 1993 premiere, except for during the high-rated 1994 Olympics. Host Letterman, of course, finished out the week by undergoing an emergency quintuple heart bypass operation on Friday. He was discharged from New York Presbyterian Hospital on Wednesday.

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Play Along at Home: Cable’s Fox Family Channel announced plans Friday for a slate of live and interactive programming including a new game show and a project from former “Seinfeld” star Jason Alexander. Scheduled for an April debut, “Paranoia” is billed as TV’s “first live, coast-to-coast network game show in at least 30 years.” The premise calls for an in-studio contestant to be pitted against players throughout the country participating from their homes via the Internet, telephone and satellite. Scheduled for a July debut, meanwhile, is “Liquid Soap,” a “half-scripted/half-improvised soap opera spoof” co-created and co-executive produced by Alexander. Plans call for the audience to propel the show’s story lines via live phone and Internet hookups, with Alexander and a troupe of actors then acting out the audience’s ideas.

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More Cable Notes: Nick at Night is adding “The Beverly Hillbillies” to its lineup, starting with episodes airing next Monday through Friday from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. each night. Starting Jan. 31, the series will air weeknights at 9:30. . . . TNT has picked up 13 episodes of its first original series, the Wall Street drama “Bull,” for premiere this summer. Peter Gallagher and Malik Yoba (“New York Undercover”) are among the cast members. . . . Danny Glover will host and executive produce “Courage,” a weekly prime-time series profiling real-life heroes, premiering this summer on Fox Family Channel. . . . FX will premiere the Howard Stern-produced comedy series “Son of the Beach” in March. . . . HBO will premiere “Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm,” a half-hour series based on the former “Seinfeld” co-creator’s recent HBO stand-up comedy special, this summer. . . . Both A&E; and the History Channel, which have previously had only East Coast feeds, will launch a separate West Coast feed on March 27. As a result, A&E;’s popular “Biography,” now seen at 5 and 9 p.m., will air locally at 8 p.m. and midnight.

CLASSICAL MUSIC

And Then There Were Five: The Long Beach Symphony Orchestra has announced its five finalists for music director: Enrique Arturo Diemecke, current music director and principal conductor of both the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico and Michigan’s Flint Symphony Orchestra; David Lobel, music director of the Memphis Symphony and associate principal conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra; Timothy Muffitt, music director of the Baton Rouge Symphony; Alasdair Neale, associate conductor of the San Francisco Symphony; and Steven Smith, music director of the Santa Fe Symphony and Chorus, and assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. Each finalist will program and conduct a Long Beach Symphony Orchestra concert during the 2000-2001 season. The winning applicant will assume artistic leadership of the orchestra with the 2001-2002 season.

QUICK TAKES

ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” is calling for contestants for its February shows. Applicants can call (800) 433-8321 to qualify, with calls accepted daily from 3 to 11 p.m., through Feb. 9. . . . The 2000 Prime-Time Emmy Awards have been slated for Sept. 10 at the Shrine Auditorium. Nominees will be announced July 28. . . . “The Ground Beneath Her Feet,” a U2 song with lyrics by Salman Rushdie from his novel of the same name, will be the opening track on the soundtrack album to Wim Wenders’ forthcoming film “The Million Dollar Hotel,” which is based on a story co-written by U2’s Bono. The soundtrack is due in stores on March 14. . . . Fox will move “That ‘70s Show” from Tuesdays to a double run on Monday nights starting Feb. 7, with new episodes airing at 8 p.m. and repeats running at 8:30, through the month of February. “Time of Your Life,” which had been airing from 8 to 9 p.m., will return in a new time period following the February ratings sweeps. . . . Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins of the musical group TLC will host seven episodes of the syndicated hip-hop magazine show “Russell Simmons’ Oneworld Music Beat,” replacing Kimora Lee Simmons, who is awaiting the birth of her first child. The program airs late Saturdays at 1 a.m. on KCAL-TV; Watkins’ first appearance is on tonight’s broadcast. . . . Longtime L.A. sportscaster Ed Arnold on Monday will begin co-anchoring the nightly newsmagazine “Real Orange” on Orange County public television station KOCE-TV. “Real Orange,” which airs weeknights at 7 and 10:30, is produced in association with the Orange County edition of the Los Angeles Times. . . . KROQ-FM (106.7)--which discontinued host Richard Blade’s long-running “Flashback Lunch” program after the new year, figuring that it was time to give ‘80s music a rest--has conceded to listener requests and will reinstate the daily noon hour or retro programming on Monday. . . . The ‘60s music show “Radio a Go-Go,” hosted by Hal Lifson, debuts on KRLA-AM (1110) tonight, airing Saturdays from 7 to 9 p.m. and Sundays from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. The show had been airing for the past year on KEIV-AM (870).