ABC Won’t Use Controversial Ad Rate Policy : Television: The network has changed to the more flexible plan set by rival NBC. Advertisers had complained.

Bowing to pressure from advertisers, Capital Cities/ABC Inc. abandoned its controversial plan to change the way it sets ad rates and instead has adopted a more flexible policy announced by NBC earlier this week.

Two weeks ago, ABC was the first network to disclose that it was departing from a decades-old industry standard and changing the way it guarantees an audience to advertisers because of what the networks contend is an inexplicable decline in viewers during the first quarter of this year.

CBS also said late Thursday that it found the NBC plan “acceptable” and would adopt it as policy.

Networks typically assure advertisers that programs will deliver a certain number of viewers within a specific category--women between the ages of 18 to 49, for example--but if a show’s ratings are below expectations, the network must give the sponsor free commercial time to make up the difference, known as “makegoods” in the industry.

But during the first quarter of this year, television ratings dropped off dramatically, which so far this year has cost the networks an estimated $150 million to $200 million in bonus time given away to advertisers.

The networks claim that an undiscovered glitch in the 3-year-old A. C. Nielsen Co. “people meter” measurement system is at fault.

But the ratings company, along with the advertising industry, maintain that there is nothing wrong with the system.

ABC’s decision to drop its policy in favor of NBC’s was no surprise to ad agencies, which last week blasted the network’s plan as too radical and unwieldy to implement.

“The consensus in the industry is that the NBC plan was better than ABC’s,” said Steven Sternberg, vice president at New York-based agency Bozell Inc. “Although we still don’t necessarily agree there is anything wrong with Nielsen.”

Sternberg said the NBC plan was better because it relied on viewing levels going back eight years, compared to ABC’s, which only used data going back to 1987, as a basis to make audience projections for the coming season.

The result was that NBC’s policy acknowledged that viewing levels were likely to be lower while the ABC policy nearly erased any declines.

Joel Segal, executive vice president at the McCann Erickson agency in New York, said the more moderate NBC approach might not turn out to be all that different from the traditional method of guaranteeing audiences.

“Chances are there won’t be a big variant in the numbers,” he predicted.

In a statement, ABC said it had backed off its original proposal--which network officials had insisted was firm--after it had reviewed rival NBC’s own policy and taken into account the reaction from agencies and advertisers.

“A uniform policy is in the best interest of the entire advertising and television communities,” ABC said.

Added a spokeswoman for the network: “If NBC’s approach had better recognition, fine. Let’s get on with business. It is not a contest to see whose plan was better.”

All three networks are entering a crucial period when they begin selling advertising time for the coming fall season.

Although the process is typically fraught with public posturing about the strength or weakness of the advertising marketplace, many network and agency executives nonetheless expect the networks to book $4.3 billion or more in advertising over the next several weeks.

This summer, however, this so-called up-front selling season could be delayed and complicated by the squabble over the networks’ new ad rate policies.

Advertising agencies are threatening to shift portions of ad budgets away from the networks and into cable, syndication or Fox Broadcasting Co.

The latter has promised not to abandon the traditional method of guaranteeing audiences.