WORTH NOTING ON TV

SUNDAY

Super Bowl XXVI (CBS, 6-10 p.m., E.T.): Historically it's the most-watched regular event on TV - sports or otherwise - and this year should prove no exception, as the Washington Redskins face the Buffalo Bills at Minneapolis's Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. The big game airs live, with pre-game, half-time, and post-game programming. (Super Bowl articles appear tomorrow in the Monitor's sports pages). TUESDAY

President's State of the Union address (Most stations - check local listings, 9-10 p.m., E.T.): Live coverage from the Oval Office is followed (on many stations) with the Democratic response by Rep. Thomas Foley (D) of Washington, Speaker of the House of Representatives. WEDNESDAY

Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (PBS, 9-11p.m.): This documentary treats a personal, usually overlooked, and sometimes tragic aspect of radio's history: the lives of the three men who created the medium - Lee de Forest, Edwin Howard Armstrong, and David Sarnoff. Ken Burns, maker of that definitive series "The Civil War," here takes a potentially bewildering mass of material - old newsreels, photos, voice-overs - and deftly gives them shape and meaning. The film that emerges - based on the book by Tom Lewis - not only conveys radio's beginnings earlier in this century, it also explores the radical new technology's immense and enduring impact, one that amounts to no less than the "de-regionalizing" of American culture. (A preview will appear in this section on Jan. 28).

Please check local listings for all programs, especially those on PBS.