KCAL or Prime: Pick Your Ticket to Lakers-Clippers : Television: Channel 9 and cable network face off with broadcasts of tonight’s game.

It won’t exactly be a case of double vision, but viewers tuning into either KCAL Channel 9 or cable’s Prime Ticket Network at 7:30 tonight will see the Lakers-Clippers game. It is believed to be the first time a regional cable sports network will televise the same event as a broadcast station in the same market.

Tonight is the first of five such telecasts this season, made possible by Prime Ticket’s growing confidence to compete against broadcast stations for ratings and its acquisition of the cable rights to carry Clippers games.

“We think we can get a higher rating than the stations and, if we don’t get a higher rating, we’re going to come very close,” Prime Ticket President and Chief Executive Officer John Severino said in explaining his service’s decision to reverse its previous position of not airing Lakers-Clippers games. “Considering that cable can penetrate only 50% of the homes, we’re fighting with one arm tied behind our back, but we’ll be going to advertisers with the ratings to show how strong we are.”

Matt Cooperstein, KCAL’s director of programming, is not fazed by Prime Ticket’s challenge.

“It is competition, but we feel we’re the Laker station and it will be business as usual,” Cooperstein said. “There could be some siphoning of audience, but I don’t think it will be very large. The Laker viewing audience usually comes to us for Laker games.”

Besides its advantages as a broadcast station, KCAL may have what could be the ultimate ratings draw in Chick Hearn, the only play-by-play announcer the Lakers have had in their 31 seasons in Los Angeles. Tom Kelly, best known for his long association with USC but in his first year with the Clippers, with call the game for Prime Ticket. Each telecast will have a separate feed, meaning viewers will see different pictures on KCAL and Prime Ticket.

“People associate Prime Ticket as being the home of the Lakers, and we probably won’t have the same degree of success with a Clipper game,” Severino said. “We’ve just begun carrying the Clippers and what we’re really aiming for is for people to associate Prime Ticket as the home of the Clippers just as we are the home of the Lakers.”

Prime Ticket figures to have the announcing advantage when the Clippers visit the Forum Feb. 5 and March 19. Hearn will call Prime Ticket’s games, with Ralph Lawler countering for KTLA Channel 5.

“There’s no doubt Chick is an institution, but if a game is available over the air there are certainly more people who will have access to it on Channel 5 than on Prime Ticket,” KTLA spokesman Ed Harrison said. “Obviously, we’re not thrilled that these games are going to be available elsewhere, but we think people enjoy listening to our broadcasting team of Ralph Lawler and (analyst) Mike Fratello and we stand behind them.”

The dual telecasts are possible because Prime Ticket has the rights to telecast selected Clippers and Lakers home games, while KCAL has the Lakers road telecast rights and KTLA has the Clippers over-the-air television package, mainly for road games.

Prime Ticket’s best rated telecast was May 15’s final game of the Lakers-Phoenix Suns playoff series, seen in about 626,000 households, 12.7% of the Los Angeles market.

Launched in 1985, Prime Ticket can be seen in 4.2 million households in Southern California, Arizona, Hawaii and Nevada. Its programming also includes Kings hockey, collegiate sports, professional boxing, tennis and volleyball, and “Press Box,” a half-hour sportscast seen Sunday through Friday.