DON’T BLAME RATINGS FOR KABC STUNT

KABC-TV Channel 7 put a former Nielsen family on one of its 11 p.m. newscasts last week as part of an apparent stunt to inflate the station’s own Nielsen ratings. Don’t blame ratings for Channel 7’s tactics, though.

We all live by ratings. Ratings are what others think of us. It’s that simple.

On a personal level, ratings are a synonym for levels of popularity and esteem. A merchant’s ratings are his sales: If corned beef isn’t moving, a deli pushes salami. The same principle applies to newspapers, whose ratings are readers: No readers equal no advertisers equal no newspaper.

Hence, ratings aren’t intrinsically bad. What is bad is the way some media--from the New York Post to shady TV--respond to the challenge of ratings. And in the critical local TV ratings sweeps months of November, February and May, that response by stations is often appalling, as news judgment is based on self-serving commercial considerations.

The worst first:

It was no accident that Nielsen ratings for the 11 p.m. news on KABC-TV Channel 7 soared dramatically last week. Channel 7 seems to have made those ratings jump by running a six-night minidoc on . . . ratings .

The A. C. Nielsen Co. bases its goofy ratings for the Los Angeles market--5.7 million TV households--on the viewing habits of a mere 488 families. And because ratings are an enigma even to those inside the TV industry, there’s no harm in airing an honest series illuminating the entire baffling process. That’s why I agreed to be interviewed by Channel 7’s Paul Moyer for the ratings series.

Based on the way the series was promoted by Channel 7, though, it appears that it was intended as merely an invitation for local Nielsen families to tune in to see what Channel 7 would say about them.

The series was middle of the barrel, the come-ons bottom of the barrel. Channel 7 ran typically misleading promos, in this case hinting that its series on ratings would reveal Nielsen secrets.

That didn’t happen.

But on Thursday night’s newscast, Moyer did deliver a promised interview with a former Nielsen family, the Chapmans of Laguna Beach. “We found them,” Moyer said, “through a salesperson here at KABC. . . .”

If you’re now a Nielsen family and hear that Channel 7 is promising to interview a former Nielsen family and make revelations about the ratings process, that’s a powerful incentive for you to tune in out of curiosity.

“It would not have induced me,” said Don Chapman when asked on the phone Saturday if he and his family would have been persuaded to watch such a ratings series during the time they participated in Nielsen surveys in 1983-84.

A significant number of present Nielsen families obviously were induced, however, as last week’s Nielsen ratings for Channel 7’s late-night newscast rocketed past their usual levels.

Channel 7 is infamous for counterfeit ratings stunts that promise caviar and deliver dust. How valid are ratings that are shaped by such artificial means? Not very. And what can be said about viewers who repeatedly fall for these stunts and still tune in, again and again and again? Next question.

For sheer sham, meanwhile, nothing topped the heavily advertised 3-D “Hawaiian Swimsuit Spectacular” on the April 30 segment of Channel 7’s “Eye on L.A.”

The titillating come-on? Bouncing lovelies in bouncier dimension. Imagine the bizarre scene, viewers everywhere looking like outer spacelings while sitting in front of their sets, peering through funny looking red-and-blue-tinted glasses and hoping to get stabbed in the face by an epic 3-D breast.

But the 3-D process just doesn’t work on TV, so the glasses did nothing but tint the screen red-blue. Yet Channel 7 got what it wanted--ratings that exploded.

“When you’re the number one station in a market like Los Angeles, you can never rest on your laurels and become complacent,” John Severino, Channel 7 president and general manager crowed in a press release about the 3-D ratings. Channel 7 must “take chances and innovate,” he added.

In this case, innovate equals nauseate.

And there was more, including that old, old standby of using news programs to promote entertainment programs. That included the inevitable promotion of “Dynasty” via a “story” on a Channel 7 newscast. Big news, “Dynasty,” when it airs on your station.

Even more imposing has been Channel 7’s scorching coverage of Oprah Winfrey.

It began this month on the 4 p.m. newscast, with a minidoc on Winfrey, whose syndicated “Oprah” talk show immediately precedes the very same 4 p.m. newscast. The purpose of the series was solely to promote “Oprah” and thereby increase the flow of viewers from the talk show to the 4 p.m. news show. And Channel 7 could count on 4 p.m. anchorman Jerry Dunphy to follow each Winfrey puff report on cue with such compelling journalese as: “Getting to know you, Oprah--and to know Oprah is to watch her.” Uh, yes, Jerry, now back into your box.

As if this weren’t enough, Channel 7 launched another series of Winfrey reports Friday on its 11 p.m. news. Ronald Reagan doesn’t get this kind of coverage.

Channel 7 hardly corners the market, though, when it comes to unethical promotion of entertainment programs under the guise of news. KNBC Channel 4 and KCBS-TV Channel 2 are no angels, either.

In one newscast, for example, Channel 4 found time for a story suspensefully touting the next night’s season finale of NBC’s “Cheers.” Appetites whetted, viewers were told to tune in the next night to discover what happens.

Hitting equally hard, Channel 2 decided last week was a good time for a brutal, uncompromising series on soap operas, featuring its very own “The Young and the Restless.”

As part of his coverage, the Channel 2 reporter actually made an appearance on the “The Young and the Restless,” which he repeatedly urged viewers to watch. See the news, see the soap, see the ratings.

There’s a lot of talk these days about the ultimate demise of network news, that it’s not cost effective or even essential. And local clowns will pick up the torch?

America, beware.