Time Ripe for New KCET Label . . . Inconsistent : Television: If the station thinks that ‘South Africa Now’ is the only show it airs that is opinionated, then its head is really buried in the sand.

Three cheers for KCET’s decision to renew “South Africa Now,” the valuable, feisty little series it earlier sought to cancel after charging that the weekly half hour was slanted toward the African National Congress (ANC).

Produced by Globalvision, “South Africa Now” has been a public relations nightmare for KCET.

Obviously believing its viewers are frightfully confused, however, KCET has decided to label the series a “point of view,” making “South Africa Now” the only program in the KCET schedule given such special consideration.

The station says the series, which has been airing 9 a.m. Sundays, “does not consistently meet KCET standards for fairness and balance in news programming.”

Then, of course, KCET had to take a stand. The one thing that none of us wants is for KCET to compromise its standards.

But wait. If “South Africa Now” doesn’t meet KCET standards, then why is the station running it? Because it has caved into pressure after facing loud public protests over its earlier decision to cancel the series? And if KCET is so easily bullied, is it now caving into pressure from the right in announcing that the series will subsequently carry a “point of view” tag?

In any event, how about some consistency? This is no time for KCET to be stingy with labels.

If “South Africa Now” is a “point of view,” then William F. Buckley’s “Firing Line” and “John McLaughlin’s One on One”--series that KCET runs back to back on Saturday afternoons--are flat-out archconservative polemics. Buckley and MacLaughlin would be deeply wounded to learn that KCET thinks they have no point of view.

Plus, if the venerable “Wall Street Week” isn’t a bastion of conservative thinking on fiscal matters, what is?

There’s more. If KCET thinks the recent Bill Moyers-reported “Frontline” program, “High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” lacked a generally liberal point of view on the Iran-Contra affair, then it wasn’t watching. If it disputes that this week’s “Frontline” program, “The Spirit of Crazy Horse,” was a near-unchallenged endorsement of American Indian grievances against the federal government, then its head is really buried in the sand.

And finally, what are KCET’s very own beloved and endlessly recurring Pledge Week pitches for operating funds if not a “point of view” consisting of one unchallenged standing ovation after another in favor of the programs and policies of KCET and PBS? How about a label for them?

On the other hand, when word gets around that KCET is running a series that doesn’t meet its standards, then maybe no one will give.

Arsenio Hall had a point the other night when he was challenged on his show by two gay activists who stood in the audience and demanded that he have more gay guests.

Which of his guests are gay really isn’t any of their business. As a matter of fact, the protesters were arguing from ignorance. They had no idea how many of Hall’s guests have been gay because not every gay person publicly announces his or her sexual preference. Was it the opinion of the protesters that only out-of-the-closet gays qualify as homosexuals?

Moreover, what a dumb move by them in the first place, as if they would somehow be able to bully Hall on his own show and make a point with the public. His show is on tape, so if he had ended up looking bad, the entire exchange could have been edited out.

As it turned out, however, the ambushers were ambushed by the ambushee.

They walked right into the whirling propeller, allowing Hall to chew them into confetti with a self-servingly sanctimonious tirade that had him coming across as a sort of heroic black champion who had been wronged by these two intruding sluggos.

And, of course, the shouting and carrying on was kept in the show because, no matter the source or circumstances, good TV is always good TV.

Dick Vitale is always bad TV.

Awesome, baby! That isn’t a mouth between Vitale’s nose and chin, it’s an active volcano, a conduit through which hot, molten, gaseous verbiage is ejected onto every telecast he works as No. 1 college basketball analyst for ESPN and ABC. His verbosity literally destroys the game.

Vitale’s point of view is himself. He takes a back seat to no one in his capacity to bury everything he covers with these epic eruptions that are passed off as commentary. He does his homework, but somehow twists nearly every piece of information he retains into something that comes off as self-serving.

He may be a swell guy in person. But everything about Vitale on the air screams Me! Me! Me! He just won’t let up. Overbearing? A hammy upstager? Compared to Vitale, Howard Cosell is Mr. Peepers, and John Madden--the CBS pro football commentator whose carefully cultivated reputation for uncontrolled loudness has earned him millions--is a barely audible whisper.

Instead of one team versus another when Vitale works a basketball telecast, its Vitale versus the game, with him the inevitable winner and viewers the losers.