DISNEY’S FRANK ELECTED TV ACADEMY PRESIDENT

Richard Frank, president of Walt Disney Pictures and Television, has been elected president of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. He will begin serving his two-year term Oct. 10, succeeding actress Diana Muldaur, who chose not to seek re-election.

Frank, who is the academy’s treasurer and has been on the executive committee for four years, won the post over Warner Bros. public relations executive Doug Duitsman, who subsequently was re-elected first vice president.

Prior to joining Disney in March, Frank had been president of the television division at Paramount.

The academy administers the prime-time and daytime Emmy Awards to honor outstanding work in television.

BELLYING UP: The new bartender on “Cheers” next season will be played by Woody Harrelson, a native of Midland, Tex., who studied theater arts at Hanover College in Indiana. He replaces Nicholas Colasanto, who died Feb. 12.

Harrelson, who has a role in Goldie Hawn’s next movie, “First & Goal,” will portray a young man named Woody who, according to NBC, is an Indiana farm boy whose goal in life has been to be a bartender. He is hired at the Cheers bar because he had written to Coach, the character Colasanto played.

Colasanto was nominated posthumously for an Emmy last week as best supporting actor in a comedy series, along with two of his “Cheers” co-stars, George Wendt (Norm) and John Ratzenberger (Cliff).

NEWS ABOUT NEWS: Executives at KTTV Channel 11 are said to be very pleased by the early ratings for the seven-week-old 8 p.m. newscast.

The half-hour news program averaged a 4 rating and 7% of the viewing audience during July, a KTTV spokeswoman said, meaning it was seen in about 177,000 homes each night. The audience was at least equal to the one for Channel 11’s previous 8 p.m. show, “Entertainment Tonight,” and was larger than the one for the station’s 10 p.m. newscast, she said.