TV MASSES YEARNING TO BE SEEN

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. But please ask them to make room for the TV people.

The greatest Statue of Liberty Show on Earth gets under way here today, and more than 1,100 people from ABC, NBC, CBS and Cable News Network have been sent forth to cover it.

The figure includes people working on both regular newscasts and special programs.

Liberty Weekend, as it’s called here, is keyed to the re-lighting of the refurbished Statue of Liberty and the nation’s July 4 Independence Day celebrations.

From tall ships to bombs bursting in air, it is a highly visual series of great-for-TV events, particularly for ABC and producer David L. Wolper. The latter also created the spectacular entertainment for the opening and closing ceremonies at the 1984 Summer Olympics, covered by ABC Sports.

For Liberty Weekend, ABC hadpaid $10 million for exclusive rights to air various Wolper-created entertainment events, which range from a classical-music concert to 200 Elvis Presley look-alikes doing whatever it is they do.

The network’s special Liberty programs, produced by ABC News, were scheduled to begin Wednesday night. They are occupying 17 1/2 hours--10 1/2 of that in prime time--of ABC’s schedule through Sunday night, which ends with a three-hour extravaganza. (For a rundown of today’s TV coverage, see Lee Margulies’ story on Page 17.)

Ambitious it is. But Fourth of July weekends usually are when millions of Americans do Fourth of July things, such as picnics, softball, lighting a firecracker or two and getting stuck in traffic jams.

Who, then, will be at TV sets to watch the Liberty Weekend telecasts by ABC--or, for that matter, by any other network--from New York Harbor?

“I think a lot of people,” bravely insists Jeff Gralnick, an ABC News vice president charged with making sure his network’s five-day show runs smoothly.

His task is not one for a man with frail nerves. Gralnick, in effect, is the field marshal of about 400 troops, ranging from gofers to co-anchors Barbara Walters and Peter Jennings.

The rival networks are not grumbling over what they once saw as ABC’s attempts to keep news segments of today’s opening ceremonies to itself.

ABC, which had denied any attempt to restrict coverage of legitmate news events, resolved the dispute with the other networks last month. Now, ABC says, its rivals are free to air 16 minutes of ceremonies that include introductions of President Reagan, all official speeches and Chief Justice Warren Burger’s swearing-in of 250 new citizens on Ellis Island.

And now, producer Gralnick’s attention is strictly on ABC’s Liberty shows, which took 10 months to plan, are costing $4 million to produce and, in addition to personnel, involve 113 camera locations, 23 microwave link-ups and even 15 boats.

He, like his counterparts at the other networks, always has in the back of his mind the possibility of attempted terrorist attacks during Liberty Weekend.

ABC’s mix of news preparations and coverage, coupled with entertainment, is more than a bit unusual, says Gralnick, who has spent 23 years as a newsman and never before has produced this kind of joint venture.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a mix of relationships like this one,” he said, shortly before going to his battle station--a studio called TV1 at ABC’s broadcast center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

The marathon project, he says, involves “a news division, its (entertainment) network, and we’ve also got a lot of sports people working.

“And there’s (David) Wolper as the outside producer, plus five of his producers. It’s, ah, very interesting.”

CBS News, which has 225 people out covering Liberty Weekend, is taking a more modest approach than ABC in the matter of specials. It has a two-hour program on tonight, then three more Liberty hours Friday morning in addition to its regular newscasts.

NBC News, fielding a staff of 300, offers a one-hour special tonight, then will expand its “Today” show to a four-hour broadcast on Friday.

CNN, with 200 troops covering the Liberty Weekend festivities, says it will provide hourly Liberty updates from 3 to 9 p.m. (PDT) today and Friday.

For CNN anchorwoman Mary Alice Williams, it promises to be an exercise in endurance as well as journalism. She’ll be on the air for 10 straight hours with Liberty reports as well as other news.

“But I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” she said, sounding very much as if she means it.

The bulk of the four networks’ Liberty coverage is coming from Governor’s Island, due east of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. There, all have set up broadcast booths and facilities, with CBS and CNN occupying a choice location--the roof of a 12-story apartment building occupied by Coast Guard families.

The CBS works--with separate enclosed tents for the “CBS Evening News” and the “CBS Morning News”--have the best view, a panorama of the harbor, the Statue of Liberty, the Battery and Wall Street.

CNN’s uncovered aerie--”the Coast Guard told us we would have to be one with nature,” a CNN spokeswoman said with a laugh--is to the rear of the CBS outpost but still has a good view of Lady Liberty.

The ABC and NBC booths are on elevated platforms at ground level.

The presence of CBS atop the red-brick apartment building has proved a bonanza for autograph hunters, most of whom are children who live in the building.

Youngsters--like 6-year-old Tricia Pelletier and Jennifer Constantine, 8, have pressed autograph books on visitors coming out of elevators on the 12th floor. It doesn’t matter to them if the visitors are famous folk like Kirk Douglas or Maria Shriver, technicians or even a visiting newspaper reporter from Los Angeles.

By Wednesday, Tim Pelletier, 9, had 32 autographs and led the field.

“They’ve gotten some pretty big names,” said Gail Sheehan, an Army sergeant’s wife visiting relatives in the building. “But they’ve also gotten the names of firemen and policemen. The kids really like them.”

A day earlier in Manhattan, Gralnick of ABC was getting set for one last test run of people, plans and electronics before it came time for the real thing.

“Today, I feel the way I normally feel two or three days before the start of political conventions,” he mused.

“And that is: Everything’s in place. We’re going to start turning things on and see what works. We understand what needs to be done. We understand what can go wrong.

“Now we just go in there and do it.”