WILL NIELSEN REBUKE OF CHANNEL 7 DO ANY GOOD?

Notch one for the good guys. But hold the champagne.

Yes, it’s true that KABC-TV Channel 7 got its wrists slapped--no, slashed --by the A.C. Nielsen Co. for running an 11 p.m. news series that appeared to twist ratings intentionally in the station’s favor.

Urged by other Los Angeles stations, Nielsen is taking the unprecedented step of deleting its May ratings for time periods corresponding to the controversial eight-part series on Channel 7. The theme of that series--the Nielsen system itself--was obviously intended to lure to the screen the same select families whose TV viewing choices determine the local Nielsen ratings. And if Channel 7’s soaring 11 p.m. Nielsen ratings on those days is a measure, the manipulating worked.

So throwing out those ratings is a well-deserved clobbering and setback for Channel 7. It will be a snowy day in Hollywood when the station tries that shady ploy again.

But will the Nielsen action benefit the public? No.

Will it eliminate the many sins and excesses of local newscasts in their hysterical quest for viewers during ratings sweeps months, which are the most crucial in setting local advertising rates? No.

Does it change anything? No.

Nielsen’s action “reaffirms the integrity of the whole ratings system,” Bob Hyland, general manager of KCBS-TV Channel 2, said Wednesday. Well, perhaps. Loosely. Whoopee.

What it doesn’t do, though, is ensure the integrity of local news, especially during the November, February and May sweeps, when many newscasts become the wagging tail of the ratings.

Following word of Nielsen’s decision Wednesday, a blistering statement on the topic was released by John Rohrbeck, general manager of KNBC Channel 4, which emerges a big winner in the controversy.

Rohrbeck called Channel 7’s ratings series an “intentional and devious attempt to manipulate” the 11 p.m. ratings. It was.

He insisted that Channel 7 “will sacrifice almost anything--including its news integrity--for a tenth of a rating point.” Channel 7 will and has: Witness also its past temporary alteration of times and lengths of newscasts and other programs solely to influence the ratings.

Rohrbeck charged Channel 7 with using “everything from nude beaches of the world to lesbian nuns in an attempt to titillate the audience and inflate its ratings.” And, unfortunately, the Nielsen action won’t eliminate that.

Channel 7--or any other station--could still offer viewers nude beaches without anyone in the broadcasting industry objecting, as long as the nudes weren’t Nielsen families.

Rohrbeck said on the phone Wednesday that Channel 4 immediately protested to Nielsen when Channel 7 began airing its series on ratings, which included appearances by a former Nielsen family and by John Holt, Nielsen chairman and chief executive. The firm has since acknowledged that Holt should not have appeared.

“We told Nielsen,” Rohrbeck said, “that there was still a week (of the May sweeps) left and that we could go with our own series that would say: ‘There are 500-plus Nielsen families in L.A. They are being manipulated. How and who’s doing it, all this week on the Channel 4 news.’ And we probably would have gotten a higher rating with that approach than KABC did with theirs.”

Unlike CBS, the parent company of KCBS, NBC-owned KNBC didn’t threaten to sue Nielsen, Rohrbeck said, but it did forecast ratings chaos if the disputed Los Angeles totals were not thrown out. “We told them that at least one station in every market, in order to compete, is going to jump in and do the same kind of series, and that that will totally destroy the credibility of the audience measurement service.”

Thus, Rohrbeck believes, the Nielsen action “sends a message to every station that you don’t mess around with the integrity of the measurement service.”

Oh, boy. Imagine the relief of viewers everywhere knowing that the integrity of the Nielsen service is secure.

How tragic that so many people in TV seem less concerned about the integrity of news than about the integrity of a ratings system that helps render many newscasts vacuous and pointless.

The irony is that Channel 7’s series on ratings--though surely a Nielsen mutant--was meatier and more interesting than many other sweeps series on Channel 7 and competing stations--mindless series that went unchallenged merely because they weren’t overtly targeted to Nielsen families.

Yet the entire ratings sweeps system itself is an invitation for broadcasters to primp, rouge themselves up and throw themselves at viewers like streetwalkers--all in the cause of ratings.

“But this was a different series,” Rohrbeck said about Channel 7’s ratings reports. “This was a series designed specifically to appeal to Nielsen families. When you do nude beaches (or other ratings-motivated news series), that is not designed for a specific audience. That is certainly designed to build an audience, but that doesn’t destroy the integrity of the ratings service.”

In either case, a sham is a sham.

Neither Channel 2 nor 4 approaches the sleaziness of Channel 7 in using sex as a come-on. But both certainly have not been above packing newscasts with added trivia during sweeps months--or above joining Channel 7 in creating stories primarily meant to promote the station’s entertainment programs.

Rohrbeck conceded that Channel 4 plays the same game “to some degree,” adding: “But the difference is to what degree.” And he questions the integrity of KABC’s parent company, Capital Cities Communications, for allowing Channel 7 to air its series on ratings during sweeps. “NBC would not have allowed me to do that series,” he said, “and if I did do it, I probably would be looking for new employment now.”

Although audience totals are measured year-round in Los Angeles, the sweeps months are still viewed as especially critical here. That’s because during those periods the ratings services also ask selected viewers to fill out diaries that provide media buyers with demographic information in addition to the usual raw data obtained from meters.

“I wish we could get to the point where we don’t have sweeps,” Rohrbeck said. But he believes that sweeps will survive even the coming of people meters, a revolutionary ratings system said to simultaneously provide year-round audience demographics as well as totals.

So Nielsen series or no Nielsen series, penalty or no penalty, the madness continues.