Turner Entertainment Networks

Elsewhere in broadcasting, Turner Broadcasting System Inc., Atlanta, has promoted several of its executives to more senior positions, after the recent departure of longtime executive Gerry Hogan. Terence McGuirk, president of Turner Sports, has been named executive vice president of Turner Broadcasting. Scott Sassa, previously executive vice president of Turner Network Television, has been named president of Turner Entertainment Networks. And Julia W.

The third-season premiere of TNT's "The Closer" broke its own ratings record Monday, scoring 8.8 million viewers and 6.3 million households, according to Turner Research from Nielsen Media Research. While the procedural drama, starring Kyra Sedgwick as a shrewdly sweet LAPD interrogator who leads an all-male staff, was already the most-watched series on basic cable, the numbers represent a new high for a series on ad-supported cable.

Turner Broadcasting System, just one day after its takeover of Hanna-Barbera Productions, laid off 115 of the 457 full-time employees at the Universal City-based animation studio. The cable company will integrate the operations of Hanna-Barbera into various parts of its organization, Turner said. The functions of many of the fired Hanna-Barbera employees duplicated jobs that Turner employees in Atlanta and New York were performing, a spokesman explained.

Time Warner Inc. promoted longtime Turner Broadcasting System Inc. executive Terry McGuirk to chairman, president and chief executive of TBS Inc., as Time Warner forms a management team in anticipation of its $6.5-billion purchase of Turner.

Hoyt Curtin, 70, of Westlake Village has been humming a tune for 34 years. Everywhere he turns he hears it. "Flintstones! Meet the Flintstones. They're the modern Stone Age family." "It's a catchy little tune," Curtin said. "Just a simple thing arranged for jazz and singers." Curtin's attachment to the cartoon theme goes deep. As music director for Hanna-Barbera, he wrote the tune in 1960. "I did the music first with timpani, boom boom. BOOM boom boom boom.

Eugene Keane isn't an actor, a stuntman or a scenery designer. He doesn't write scripts or sew costumes. Nevertheless, he could play a vital role in the way the film and television industries function in the future. Keane is president and chief executive of Video Products Group, a Ventura County firm that manufactures systems to transport high-quality video and audio data over fiber optic and public lines.

Reacting to Republican charges that Hollywood vulgarizes American culture with entertainment steeped in violence and sex, the executive producer of NBC's popular "Law and Order" series said Tuesday that such rhetoric is a prelude to government censorship. "Politicians would be much more comfortable if there was an infrastructure that allowed them to determine when you can have a 'Cop Killer' in record stores, when you can have a . . .

George Lopez wants everyone to know he has not been "Leno-ed." Unlike the bitter acrimony that enveloped late night television earlier this year as Jay Leno reclaimed his old seat as host of NBC's "Tonight Show," Lopez welcomed Conan O'Brien to the cable channel, which in a surprise move announced Monday that the tall, red-headed comedian will launch his own late night program for them in November. In an ironic turn, O'Brien's arrival to the cable channel's late night lineup means that Lopez has to push his still nascent 11 p.m. show, "Lopez Tonight," to midnight.

No one lives alone in author Mary Norton's world. It's populated by The Borrowers, little people who set up house beneath floorboards and fill their world with bits and pieces of ours. They decorate in English country tiny: A matchbook becomes a chest of drawers, a biscuit tin a bed.