IT'S INFOTAINMENT OVERLOAD AT THE NEW HEADLINE NEWS.

Byline: David Kronke Television Writer

CNN Headline News, hoping to inject fresh blood into its anemically rated prime time, jettisoned its news-bite format Monday for a three-hour bloc it dubs Headline Prime.

Here's what the network has cooked up to lure viewers: an hour-long infotainment program, a legal show trucking in sensational crimes and what it touts as ``the only live national nightly newscast at 9 Eastern'' Standard Time. Quite the distinction - sort of like calling The New York Daily News ``the only New York daily tabloid newspaper with the image of a camera in its logo.''

The extravaganza commences at 4 p.m. PST with the proudly shallow ``Showbiz Tonight'' (repeated at 7 p.m.). Former VJs Karyn Bryant and A.J. Hammer host, smiling feverishly on a set suggesting a '50s malt shop designed by Le Corbusier.

Bryant and Hammer enthused last month that their show would be superior to ``Entertainment Tonight'' and ``Extra'' because it would feature the latest in breaking trivia. Monday's scoops included shots of screaming fans outside an MTV awards show, the nugget that Madame Tussaud's had separated its Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston wax figures and the latest on Shania Twain's new fragrance. Beat that,``Extra!''

There was one stab at real-world significance, an examination of increased FCC indecency fines. Unfortunately, it devolved into ``Crossfire''-style screaming. Entertainment ``reporter'' Amy Kean, hoping to replace Ann Coulter when she gets too long in the tooth, denounced TV programming, without offering specific examples, as ``absolute smut.''

Like the shows it imitates, ``Showbiz Tonight'' is TV's equivalent of cotton candy - fluffy and forgettable. But honestly, who in their right mind could regularly sit through an entire hour of entertainment news?

``Nancy Grace,'' featuring the Court TV personality who actually employs phrases like ``Lady Justice'' and swaggeringly tells guests, ``I'm not done barbecuing you,'' follows at 5 p.m. (repeating at 8 p.m.). Monday's broadcast was, bluntly, a glitch-laden disaster.

Grace gracelessly interrupted her tease for her show during ``Showbiz Tonight,'' looking confusedly off-camera. A guest's feed was lost midsentence, a cameraman was repeatedly visible (if intentional, it looked amateurish) and, at one point, comments her producer fed into her earpiece for her to proffer as her own - calling someone ``a jerk'' - were audible over the air.

Grace spent most of her hour on a lurid Idaho trial in which a 16-year- old is accused of murdering her parents with a shotgun. But it's all about the host on ``Nancy Grace'': She's made up her mind and if any of her guests says something that deviates from her viewpoint, she interrupts them immediately. Why isn't this woman on Fox News?

``Prime News Tonight'' concludes Headline News' retooled evening at 6 and 9 p.m. Mike Galanos and Erica Hill anchor a competent enough newscast. Galanos, however, veers awkwardly from happy-talk to anchorman gravitas. Interviewing a doctor about an overseas outbreak of potentially lethal avian flu, he overreacted: ``A lot of people sitting at home - they're frightened!'' The medic talked him down, handling Galanos like a tutor instructing an earnest but halting student.

Like many newscasts, ``Prime News'' clumsily shoehorns magazine-style segments into its mix. ``The Radar'' examines, per Hill, ``cool things,'' while entertainment-oriented ``The Prime Guide'' is, after a full hour of entertainment news already, sheer overkill. Alongside ``Nancy Grace's'' histrionics and ``Showbiz Tonight's'' fawning genuflection, however, it almost seems the stuff of Edward R. Murrow.

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com