A Preview of Coming Attractions for the Fourth of July : Television: Five holiday marathons are on tap for viewers.

It used to be that making plans for the Fourth of July was pretty simple: Where should we go for fireworks? Hot dogs or hamburgers? Which John Philip Souza march should we cue up this year? But these days many local residents have been seduced into adding another decision to their Independence Day rituals: Which TV marathon should we watch?

There are five marathons to ponder this year:

* KTLA Channel 5 presents its traditional “The Twilight Zone” festival from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.

* KDOC Channel 56 has 23 episodes of the old “Bob Newhart Show” beginning at 9 a.m.

* KCET Channel 28 will air 10 hours of the historical series “The American Experience.”

* “Ha!” the cable comedy channel will play 24-hours of “Love American Style” beginning at 3 a.m.

* KCOP Channel 13 will show nine uncut movies including “On the Waterfront,” “West Side Story” and “Bonnie and Clyde” without any commercial interruptions the entire day.

“It’s a holiday gift to our viewers,” said Rick Feldman, KCOP’s station manager. Feldman explained that the idea behind these holiday marathons, which KTLA originated on Thanksgiving Day, 1980, is to accommodate all the working people who ordinarily are not home to watch television during the week.

“It’s a way to bring viewers to the set who are only around because they have the day off,” he said. “So you try to create something that is different to pull them in. With regular daytime programming, it’s tough to find a promotional hook.”

On past holidays, KCOP has aired four Woody Allen movies with commercials. This time, Feldman said, the station has decided to suffer a six-figure financial hit by blowing out all commercials from midnight tonight to 10 p.m. Wednesday so that viewers can enjoy these American-themed movies without any interruptions. In order, the station will air Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront,” “Now, Voyager” with Bette Davis and Claude Rains, Philip Kaufman’s astronaut saga “The Right Stuff,” John Wayne in “The Alamo,” “The Music Man” with Robert Preston and Shirley Jones, “West Side Story” with Natalie Wood, “A Star Is Born” starring Judy Garland and James Mason, Howard Hawks’ “Red River” and “Bonnie and Clyde” with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

The station will broadcast 90-second breaks between each movie that will include a trailer for the upcoming film plus promotions for some of the station’s own upcoming programs.

KTLA invented this sort of promotional hook on Thanksgiving Day, 1980, to take advantage of the unusually large male and school-age holiday audience. It dusted off the cult classic series “The Twilight Zone” and has been airing it ever since. On July 4, 1982, KTLA inaugurated another tradition with an all-day marathon of “Star Trek.” The following year, KTLA switched over to another holiday’s worth of “Twilight Zone” episodes and Rod Serling has been popping up on the half-hour every Thanksgiving and Independence Day since.

“We’re usually the No. 1 station in the market on these days,” said Mark Sonnenberg, KTLA’s director of programming. He said ratings for the station, especially during the daytime hours, are up to 50% higher than usual, making these marathons a financial bonanza. Sonnenberg said that advertising revenue is generally down during the summer months, but the Fourth of July marathons have enabled the station to attract advertisers on a day that would otherwise be a tough sell. The marathon also enables the station to promote some of its own regular programs to a large audience that normally would not be watching the station during these hours.

This year’s marathon consists of 22 of the 154 total “Twilight Zone” episodes, including four rarely seen hourlong programs. Sonnenberg said that viewers call the station days in advance asking for the list of episodes the station plans to air. Some viewers even go to the station to obtain their own list.

“Everyone has their favorite episodes, and it’s fun to watch the big stars like Robert Redford in some of their earliest roles,” Sonnenberg said. “But another reason it works so well is that each show is only half an hour and people can come in and out of them throughout the day. You can watch one show, go out, come back, watch another one, maybe switch over to (sports), and if that gets boring, you can switch back to another ‘Twilight Zone.’ Movies take too long with all the things people have going on during a holiday.”

Feldman concedes that no one will watch all nine movies on KCOP, but he does believe people will be eager to block out two hours to watch one of these films without commercials. “Sure people will be going to the beach, but they might come home at 4 p.m. and then they can sit down and watch a movie,” he said.

KCET’s marathon takes the Independence Day theme to heart as all the “American Experience” films focus on some event or time period from the nation’s past. The festival, which runs from 7 a.m. to noon, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., is organized so that each episode will present a different regional, political and philosophical point of view.

Among the topics covered by these documentaries are the life of cowboys, baseball’s place in American culture, the first around-the-world air race in 1924, the underground railroad, Eric Sevareid’s experiences as a radio correspondent in 1930s Europe, Prohibition, the Sears catalogue, the struggles for Native American rights and European immigration to the United States. “The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter,” the award-winning film that profiles the lives of women workers during World War II, will be screened at 4 p.m.

The point of all these marathons? Station identity.

“It’s one more thing your station is known for,” Sonnenberg said. “When you think of Thanksgiving, you think, the ‘Twilight Zone’ is going to be on. And as you’re getting ready for your picnic on the Fourth of July, someone will make some reference to it. As you look at the growing fragmentation of TV with more and more channels and cable choices, it’s more and more crucial to have close ties to viewers. In addition to the Rose Parade and the Angels, ‘Twilight Zone’ marathons are what KTLA is known for.”