National Broadcasting Co

Ted Turner confirmed Wednesday that his company is talking with NBC about acquiring rights to portions of the Summer Olympics that the network does not plan to broadcast itself. "We are having some discussions, as has been reported," he said. "I don't know what's going to happen. . . . We are having ongoing discussions. That's all I can say." Turner did not make clear where his Turner Broadcasting System would run such programming if NBC agrees to give up a portion of the U.S.

Network leader NBC, acknowledging that it is "vulnerable" after a season in which all of its new fall series failed and its ratings dropped, on Monday announced a major overhaul of its prime-time schedule, replacing six hours of programming for 1990-91. Enlisting such TV veterans as Jane Curtin, Ed Begley Jr. and Robert Urich, as well as rap music performers, NBC will present nine new series in the fall, seven of them comedies.

Because NBC owns the television rights to track and field's World Championships in Tokyo, TV outlets were barred Friday from showing Mike Powell's record-breaking long jump until it was shown on NBC's tape-delayed coverage at 12:30 a.m. Even NBC-owned Channel 4 wasn't supposed to show the jump, according to an NBC Sports spokesman in New York, but the station showed the jump anyway on all newscasts.

The Seoul Olympics: Who is selling what and whom? You're watching a relentless marketing of products, programs and people during the 179 1/2-hour marathon that NBC pretentiously titles "Games of the XXIV Olympiad." A colleague's perceptive 11-year-old son suggests a more accurate name: "Games of the XXIV Commercials." Twenty-four about every five minutes.

Two more weightlifters were disqualified from the Olympic Games Sunday for failing drug tests. Kalman Csengeri of Hungary and Fernando Mariaca of Spain failed urine tests administered by the International Olympic Committee's Medical Commission, which found traces of banned drugs in their system. Csengeri, who competed in the 165-pound class, was discovered to have used an anabolic steroid. Mariaca, in the 148 1/2-pound class, was found to have used an amphetamine.

"Frasier's" latest marital cliffhanger was played out behind the scenes, as NBC and the show's production company, Paramount Television Group, finalized a three-year deal late Monday to continue their relationship--extending the Emmy-winning comedy through an 11th season and matching the historic run of its antecedent "Cheers."

The strike against NBC by 2,800 technicians and off-camera news staffers continued in its 10th week Wednesday after federally mediated negotiations broke off after eight days. "We were not able to resolve the dispute," said a spokeswoman for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in Washington, where officials of NBC and the National Assn. of Broadcast Employees and Technicians had met. The agency called off the talks Tuesday night after nine hours of bargaining.

When psychologist Susan Forward's book "Men Who Hate Women, & the Women Who Love Them" came out seven years ago, it flourished for 40 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and attracted a flock of Hollywood producers with ideas of how to turn it into a movie. But the nonfiction book, which explored emotional abuse, never made it to the screen, despite the interest of 10 production companies and three years of what Forward calls "development hell" at NBC.

NBC will televise Steven Spielberg's Holocaust drama "Schindler's List" as a four-hour event next season, virtually uncut and with limited commercial interruptions. The program will air on a Sunday night in February--during the ratings sweeps--with only two or three blocks of commercials within the broadcast. Only a single four-letter word will be excised from the original theatrical version that was rated R for nudity and violence.

The long and often tortured script for Universal Studios was put to bed Wednesday as French-owned Vivendi Universal and General Electric Co. finalized an agreement to marry their entertainment assets in a deal that could spur far-reaching changes in Hollywood. As was widely anticipated, the two companies agreed to create an entity that combines the Universal movie studio, theme parks and TV businesses, including the Sci Fi and USA cable channels, with GE's television operations.