ABC’S LIVE AID--’CAUSE GREATER THAN RATINGS’

National ratings for ABC’s Saturday telecast of the famine-fighting Live Aid rock spectacular gave the network nothing to get down and boogie about Tuesday. Its big broadcast came in 30th out of 54 prime-time network shows rated last week.

Asked for comment, an ABC spokesman in New York summed things up by saying, “The cause was greater than the ratings.” However, he added, the figures were close to what ABC had projected for sponsors of the program.

ABC had projected that at least 25% of the national TV audience would see some or all of its three-hour telecast. The broadcast, hosted by Dick Clark, was seen in an estimated 9.9 million homes by about 23% of the people watching television during those three hours, according to A.C. Nielsen Co. figures.

Last week’s top-rated network program, a Thursday rerun of NBC’s hit comedy “The Cosby Show,” was seen in nearly 16.4 million homes by an estimated 38% of the viewers who had their TV sets on at the time.

An ABC research executive had said Monday that the network never expected huge ratings for its Live Aid telecast because the daytime portion of the rock concerts in Philadelphia and London was available on an ad hoc network of 105 television stations.

He noted that the entire 16-hour concert broadcast package also was carried on MTV, the rock video cable network. MTV says it is available in 27.3 million homes.

A spokeswoman for Worldwide Sports and Entertainment, the Marina del Rey-based company that produced and marketed the Live Aid broadcasts worldwide, said Tuesday that the company wasn’t disappointed at the ratings for ABC’s coverage of the concerts.

“I don’t think so, because based on the number of phone calls that came in, people were definitely watching it, either on ABC or on the other outlets,” she said.

She referred to the thousands of calls made Saturday and Sunday to the special toll-free telephone numbers that Live Aid organizers had set up in 10 locations in the United States to take pledges of contributions from viewers.

The telephone numbers only were broadcast by MTV and by stations belonging to Live Aid’s ad hoc network. ABC declined to participate in that, citing its long-standing policy against airing direct solicitations for money.

The network did include in its telecast the San Francisco address--also broadcast by MTV and Live Aid’s daytime TV network--where viewers could send contributions. However, unlike the two other outlets, ABC didn’t specifically ask viewers to send money to that address.

The Worldwide spokeswoman, speaking by phone from Philadelphia, estimated that the globally broadcast rock spectacular had brought in $40 million for fighting famine in Africa, “and that’s a conservative figure.”