THE SWEEPS : How About Sweeping This Under the Rug?

Once again, it’s time for TV’s house of mirrors.

Much of this month’s local programming will seem familiar. That’s because February is one of those three-times-yearly, look-alike, sound-alike ratings sweeps periods that are crucial in setting advertising rates for local TV stations. The four-week race officially begins Wednesday.

The competition for audience and profits is intense. February, May and November are when stations imitate the party buffoon who tries to attract attention by standing on the piano and doing impressions while wearing a lamp shade on his head.

Even foolishness is an exhaustible commodity, however.

So stations, after running out of new bad ideas, resort to old bad ones. Most try to inflate their ratings by recycling and retooling past inane, exploitative and manipulative news and program gimmicks. They repackage, retitle, rehash and regurgitate. Details may change, but the fundamental burlesque remains.

The deja voodoo repeats season after season for only one reason: Viewers continue to tune in--either because they have short memories, can’t see through the camouflage or enjoy reruns of reruns.

There were some genuine attempts to resist the traditional sweeps frenzy last year, such as KCBS-TV Channel 2’s November series on South Korea. And in May, Channel 2 kept a relatively low sweeps profile in its news programming.

Generally, though, the usual repetition and familiar staples prevailed in Los Angeles. For all three ratings sweeps months, network-owned stations totaled 14 series or stories on kids, 13 on sex (rarely delivering the prurience promised in the misleadingly hot-blooded ads) and 11 on cars or traffic. That old reliable, gridlock, caught the attention of both Channel 4 and Channel 7 almost simultaneously, for example.

As for quality. . . .

Flash back to February, 1987.

It was a typical sweeps month in many respects. It was a month when bitter news rivals KABC-TV Channel 7 and KNBC Channel 4--as if on the same kinetic wave length--broke devastating, meticulously researched, brutally honest, unbearably candid, no-holds-barred, incredibly penetrating, simply shocking stories. . . .

On baldness.

Third-place KCBS-TV was just as aggressive, breaking journalistic ground with a gutty probe of office romances and a relentless five-part series on infidelity. Thumbing its nose at convention, moreover, it boldly and daringly examined the Los Angeles singles scene.

And skeptics said it couldn’t be done.

Not to be outshone, Channel 7 was exposing the underside of video dating and “the heartbreak of interracial love.” After exhaustive digging, meanwhile, Channel 4 aired the story that could not remain secret any longer, stunning all of Los Angeles with the truth about what it’s like to photograph beautiful models.

On it went: tough, incisive, sizzling, head-turning reports on traffic school, men’s infertility, sports cheerleaders, paradise travel spots, kids who eat too little, kids who eat too much, kids who rat on their parents to the cops, kids who don’t sleep enough, kids who don’t accept discipline, women having babies, young self-made millionaires, gourmet cooking, L.A. trends and--a hot topic on everyone’s mind--the perils of valet parking.

Ratings sweeps periods are a circus.

You want vacuous? Last May brought “Celebrity Bodyguards” on Channel 4 and anchor Tawny Little’s ruminations on her own pregnancy on Channel 7, where reporter Larry Carroll, in November, reported on the premature birth of his daughter.

That same month, Channel 4 scooped everyone on buried treasure, allergies, tips on becoming a game show contestant and the real story on bargain shopping. Channel 7 delivered on celebrity moms (what--no moms of celebrity bodyguards?), the reasons some people murder and what you can tell from a person’s face. No comment.

Meanwhile, those old competitors on Channel 2 and Channel 7 respectively, “2 on the Town” and “Eye on L.A.,” battled furiously to see which could “out-dumb” the other in playing up sex.

What else but “2 on the Town” could give new meaning to the term global hotspot by promoting eroticism in the turbulent Philippines last February and revealing “Israel’s Secret Resorts” last November? And viewers are still buzzing about February’s unique two-segment depiction of females by “Eye on L.A.,” the profound “Sexy, Single and Scared” followed by the awesome “Combat-Ready Women.”

To entice lusting viewers during sweeps periods, both shows have used print ads to promote themselves as flesh markets, frolicking at beaches and international playgrounds in order to showcase water-slick beauties in Barbie-sized bikinis.

You want duplication? If “2 on the Town” had its “Bikini I,” “Bikini II” and “Swimsuit Spectacular” programs, “Eye on L.A.” had its “Playboy Swimwear” and “3-D Swimsuit Spectacular” (which turned out to be 2-D). Both shows aired May segments on miniskirts, moreover, and “Women of the Waves” was so sensational in February that “Eye on L.A.” brought it back in May. Then, too, an “Eye on L.A.” program on beauties of the South Pacific was such a stunner in May that the November encore was a given.

Repetitive sexual and sex-related themes have also not eluded competitive “Oprah” and “Donahue,” on Channels 7 and 4, respectively.

Oprah Winfrey had her share from “Lingerie Fashions” to “Men Who Pay for Sex.” But in winning the battle of ratings, she lost the battle of pandering, almost 2 to 1.

Yes, “Donahue” devoted a week to pioneering programs from the Soviet Union last February. But it spent far more time panting heavily. Try this partial list of topics for 1987 sweeps:

“Men Who Love Boys,” “Men Who Dress Like Women,” “Flirting and Dating,” “Prostitution,” “Women Turned Bad,” “Marital Quarrels,” “Sex Therapists,” “Bigamy,” “Female Impersonators,” “Sex With Your Ex,” “Why Some Women Can’t Keep a Man,” “Why Married Women Have Affairs,” “Sexual Swingers,” “Women Who Lose Their Husbands to Their Best Friends,” “The Yuppie Disease-- ‘Not Tonight, Dear,’ ” “Erotic Dancing” and “First Love Fantasies.”

Just a tad of overlapping, would you say?

The same applies to the sex-and-violence theme weeks by local independent stations (except for KHJ-TV Channel 9), whereby they package their movies in a camp way that makes them more promotable for sweeps periods.

This is Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, horror-flick, let’s-scare-the-daylights-out-of-kids-who-may-be-watch-ing-at-8-p.m. territory.

Last year brought “Intense Suspense Week,” “Steve McQueen Week,” “Brat Pack Week” and “Clash of the Tough Guys Week” on KTLA Channel 5.

KTTV Channel 11 came through with “Mad Men Week,” “Science Fiction Week,” “Mother Never Told Me Week,” “The Duke Week,” “Nightmare Week” and “Little Week of Horrors.”

And from KCOP Channel 13: “Mean Hombres of the West Week,” “John Belushi Week,” “First Time on Television Week,” “Dirty Harry Week,” “Clint Week” and “Scared to Death Week.”

Here’s one they forgot: “Ratings Sweeps Are Driving Me Crazy Week.”

The new February sweeps period beckons.

Notice that this week brings more Charles Bronson movies on Channels 5 and 11 and “The World’s Most Beautiful Women” on “Eye on L.A.” (no relation to last February’s “The Most Beautiful Women in the World” from “2 on the Town”). Also arriving: a new-but-sounds-old “Donahue” episode asking “Would You Let Your Husband’s Ex-Wife Live With You?” What America’s been waiting to know.

Next week’s bill includes Channel 4’s tips on how to marry a millionaire and a Channel 7 report on “Wayward Husbands.” “Donahue” airs a broad range of topics from titillation to sex: “Discover Your Parent Is Gay?,” “What Would You Tell Your Daughter About Sex?,” “Love Triangle Gone Bad,” “Loving a Younger Man” and “The Ultimate in Safe Sex.”

And “Eye on L.A.” will explore “The World’s Best Beaches,” which of course is entirely different from its November program on “The Best Beaches.”

Onward and downward, in triplicate and quadruplicate.