DATE: Monday, November 17, 1997             TAG: 9711160003

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Larry Bonko 

                                            LENGTH:  101 lines

PAMELA LEE BARES HER FEELINGS IN SUPPORT OF PETA AND ANIMALS

LOCAL TV NEWS and notes to consider while you try to convince yourself that George Clooney is the sexiest man alive:

The bare facts - She didn't visit PETA headquarters in Norfolk to pose nude - that would have been a bigger story than breaking ground for the MacArthur Mall - but we do have pictures of Pamela Lee posing au naturel (taken in New York) while urging her fans to give fur the cold shoulder.

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) on Front Street is a celebrity magnet, with Lee, Bill Maher, Ellen DeGeneres, Cindy Crawford, Kim Basinger and Paul McCartney phoning, faxing or video-taping their anti-fur messages.

``Pam's taken this on as a commitment, as a job,'' said Joey Panello of PETA. He sounded thrilled.

If she hadn't, would the 8 1/2-months-pregnant Lee have flown overnight from Los Angeles to Manhattan to launch PETA's give-fur-a-cold-shoulder campaign?

Be advised that she bared all in between pregnancies.

PETA says the sale of fur has dropped steadily in the past two decades since celebrities took up the cause.

Panello also said that Lee supports PETA in other ways. ``She sends a little check now and then,'' Panello said. Try your darndest to bring her to Norfolk, Joey.

Call it togetherness - WVEC, which once had a local newscast on WPEN featuring co-anchors in Norfolk and Hampton, revived the idea for ``13 News at Noon.'' It's Kathryn Barrett on the Southside, Velma Scaife on the Peninsula with support from Jonathan Costen and Kathy Barnstorff.

Barrett and Scaife are sharing a split screen.

WVEC is obliged to cover the lower Peninsula - the station is licensed in Hampton - but now, says news director Keith Connors, Channel 13 will pick up the beat in Newport News, Gloucester and Williamsburg.

Scaife is a smoothie. If WVEC's 6 and 11 p.m. anchor, Regina Mobley, isn't the next to move up to a market bigger than No. 39 Tidewater, I'm betting it will be The Velma.

The changes roll on - At Family Channel headquarters in Virginia Beach, there's no denying published reports in Los Angeles that say Richard Cronin, formerly of Nick at Nite's TV Land, will run FAM when it becomes FAM Kids.

FAM was sold to Fox and Saban last summer for more than $1 billion. If Cronin gets the job, it will be because his 13 years with Nickelodeon taught him much about children's programming. Cronin's business cards describe him as ``a gung-ho guy.''

Why the silence at the FAM building in Lynnhaven?

Tourist attraction - The TV and film studio near Petersburg started by Norfolk State grad Tim Reid will be part of the city's ``Into the New Millennium Twilight Christmas Tour'' on Dec. 7.

Here's your chance to see Reid's New Millennium Studios on Squirrel Level Road just off Interstate 85. The tour tickets - visits to mansions and estates are included - cost $12 at the Petersburg Visitors Center in Old Towne Petersburg. Call (804) 861-6780.

The Mario era - Mario A. Hewitt, settling into the job as WVEC's vice president and general manager, says his priorities include perking up Channel 13's early-morning news - it's No. 3 in a field of three - and fine-tuning Local News on Cable.

WVEC hoped that bringing Carol Hoffman over from WAVY would make the ratings soar. Her wake-up news on Channel 10 was No. 1. So far, the co-anchor team of Hoffman and Brian Smith hasn't started a ratings bonfire.

Of the morning show, Hewitt said, ``There's a lot of work to be done.'' He's a classy guy - age 47 and recently wed - who once played baseball in the Montreal Expos' minor league system. Hewitt swears he was a .300 hitter.

LNC's problem? Building an audience large enough to show in the ratings, which is what advertisers care about. The partners in LNC - The Virginian-Pilot, Cox Communications and WVEC - have no second thoughts about starting the channel, although it's not yet even a blip on the ratings radar, Hewitt said.

Questions, questions - Am I the only one who wonders why we never see the sky when they show ``Sky Center 3'' on WTKR . . . wonders who qualifies as a WAVY Weather Watcher . . . wonders why WVEC and WPEN run many of the same programs?

TV clutter - Speaking of questions, Carl Anapol of Portsmouth called to comment on WTKR's election night coverage. Why, asks Anapol, did Channel 3 stick its ``bug,'' or logo, in the right-hand corner of the screen as the ballot count was shown on a crawl?

``It hid the figures,'' he said. Did it, Paul? I was watching LNC.

Missile alert? - On ``The 700 Club'' the other night, CBN News showed ``world-exclusive, never seen before'' satellite pictures of what it says are North Korean missile sites. These long-range missiles may one day be aimed at Alaska or America's West Coast, said reporter Dale Hurd.

That was enough for program host Pat Robertson, who said that it's time for a ``surgical strike'' against those sites and added that it might not be a bad idea to wipe out the North Korean dictator. Under which of the Ten Commandments does that fall, Pat? MEMO: Call in your questions or comments about local TV to me at

640-5555, press 2486. ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

Pamela Lee posed ...

Photo

ANDER PHOTOGRAPHY

Velma Scaife on the Peninsula is co-anchor of WVEC's ``13 News at

Noon.''

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