June 27, 1985

During the last two weeks of June, when many New Yorkers are winding down for summer vacations, the three major TV networks are frantically making deals with advertisers clamoring to buy time on next season's prime-time shows. In last season's frenzied, ''upfront'' market, ABC, NBC and CBS had sold about $2.4 billion in commercial time, a record, to national sponsors by July 1. But the 1985-86 season, which begins in September, has gotten off to a unusually slow start. Although at least $2.2 billion is expected to be committed by early July, only a handful of deals have been written so far. Advertisers seem convinced that the demand for network time will be less intense than last season because of a sluggish economy, a decline in network ratings and increasing competition from independent TV stations and cable.

Like a shirt with concealed buttons, the rooms in a duplex apartment in U.N. Plaza -newly redecorated by L.J.K. Design of New York -seem to have something missing: The walls have no switches of any kind and look oddly blank. The neatness is deceptive. The apartment is, in fact, a maze of wiring and a small warehouse of relays and components that connect all the rooms through an integrated lighting, telephone, video and audio system designed by engineers. The system is controlled by low-voltage digital panels that concentrate the many switches and dials for lights, stereo and other equipment in a single, neatly packed panel. Although the basic technology of low-voltage control panels has been available for about two decades, remote-control switching panels for the house and office have proliferated only in the last five years. According to Stuart Fields, vice president of Boulton Music Systems in Manhattan, the advent of more sophisticated, better-integrated audio and video equipment has spurred more people to install switching panels to control the systems better. While wiring for the audio-video equipment, many people have wired the rest of the house or apartment for lighting, home appliances, security systems and motorized curtains and shades.

A Dallas dispatch yesterday on a speech on Jewish-black relations at a meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People misidentified Morris B. Abram. He is a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights and a former head of the American Jewish Committee. He has never been an official of the Anti-Defamation League.

THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 1985 International The Shiite leader Nabih Berri freed one of the 40 American hostages in Beirut and proposed that the others be placed in the custody of a third party until Israel freed 735 Lebanese and Palestinian detainees. Mr. Berri said the 39 Americans could be sent to a Western embassy in Beirut or handed over to Syria. There were indications that France was considering making its embassy available. [Page A1, Column 6.] The U.S. was said to be exploring the possibility of the offer by the Shiite militia leader, Nabih Berri, to move the American hostages to a Western embassy there or to a third country such as Syria. [A1:4-5.]

The proposed partnership between the International Business Machines Corporation and the MCI Communications Corporation could speed up the continuing deregulation of the telecommunications industry, according to Federal officials involved in telecommunications policy. At a time when the Federal Communications Commission and members of Congress are looking for evidence that breaking up the American Telephone and Telegraph Company as a way to promote competition was a sound decision, the deal announced Tuesday brings welcome reassurance for pressing ahead on several pending issues, the officials said. I.B.M., the nation's largest computer company, announced an agreement with MCI, the nation's second-largest long-distance company, after A.T.&.T., in which I.B.M. could purchase up to 30 percent of MCI. Terms of the Transaction As part of the deal, MCI is buying Satellite Business Systems, a smaller long-distance competitor owned by I.B.M. and the Aetna Life and Casualty Company. The transaction is worth about $1 billion, with I.B.M. purchasing an 18 percent interest in MCI initially.