No Clear Winner in L.A. Sweeps : TV ratings: KABC and KNBC share the No. 1 slot in afternoon news race, depending on who’s counting. ‘Oprah’ again tops ‘Donahue’ and ‘Geraldo.’

It was a split decision in the local news ratings war between KABC Channel 7 and KNBC Channel 4 during the just-concluded May sweeps: KABC looked especially good according to Nielsen while KNBC fared better as measured by Arbitron.

Bolstered by a huge lead-in from “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” which doubled the ratings of arch-rival “Donahue” on Channel 4, KABC swept the 4 p.m., 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. news battle, Nielsen reported Wednesday with one day left in its four-week sweeps period.

But Arbitron, whose sweeps ended a day earlier, declared that KNBC had more viewers for the 4 and 6 p.m. newscasts, with KABC a narrow winner at 5 p.m. (Ironically, KNBC dropped its subscription to Arbitron several years ago because station management was skeptical about the accuracy of its methodology.)

The differences between the rival ratings services went further. For example, Nielsen indicated that the combined audience for the 5 p.m. newscasts on KABC, KNBC and KCBS Channel 2 was down about 70,000 homes from last May’s tally. Arbitron reported that the same broadcasts were up 100,000 homes over last year.

From 6 to 6:30 p.m., however, both services reported the same difference in the combined audience of the three stations’ newscasts compared to last year.

How can two companies that purport to measure the same thing--how many people in the Los Angeles market are watching television and what programs they are watching--vary so wildly?

“That’s the age-old question,” Mary Hall, research director at KCBS, said Wednesday. “And everyone is concerned about it.”

Each service uses approximately 500 meters to measure the market, which covers more than 5 million television households. But each service uses a different method to place those meters in homes. With such an ethnically diverse city as Los Angeles, if one service places more meters in one type of neighborhood than the other, discrepancies can arise. Furthermore, according to research directors at local stations, only about 470 of those 500 meters are actually working and reporting in each survey.

That is too few for a market this big, said Joyce Inouye, research director at KCOP Channel 13 and president of the Los Angeles Television Stations Research Committee.

Neither Hall nor Inouye would say that the vast discrepancies between the two services calls into question the accuracy of the system that is used to set advertising rates at local television stations, but both said it could be improved dramatically with a bigger sample.

“Both services swear by their samples and methodology,” Inouye said. “But the feeling among researchers is that we need to get them to increase the meter sample size. The sample size has stayed the same in Los Angeles for close to 10 years, and look what has happened to the population. If there were more meters, you wouldn’t see those discrepancies.”

Cable has further complicated the job of measuring television viewing in recent years, Inouye said, as the number of television choices has expanded significantly. The cost of installing and maintaining the meters is the primary reason that ratings services have not increased the sample. For now, even though local stations have been working with the ratings services to improve the system, Hall concludes, “it is the only system we have. A lot is riding on it, so we just have to take it at face value, warts and all.”

Both Arbitron and Nielsen showed that KNBC maintained its wide lead over KABC with its early morning and 11 p.m. newscasts. The 11 p.m. broadcast, thanks in part to NBC’s sweeps victory in prime time, was up by more than 70,000 homes a night over last May, according to Nielsen.

KCBS, which last weekend won Emmys for the best 30-minute and 60-minute newscasts in town, nonetheless continued to trail both Channels 4 and 7 in all-news time periods.

KCAL Channel 9, which had made gains with its three-hour prime-time newscast last February as a result of the Gulf War, saw its audiences slip back to last year’s low numbers. At 10 p.m., in fact, KCAL finished last among the four independent stations’ nightly newscasts in both services. KTLA Channel 5 again dominated this competition, with KTTV Channel 11 second and KCOP Channel 13 leaping into third.

Without the war or any other major news event this past month, viewing habits seemed to slip back to normal, stemming the huge decline in the audience for local news that the three network-owned stations experienced during the February sweeps. CNN, for example, which saw its ratings soar to four times normal in February, fell back in May to lower levels than the same period a year ago.

Nationally, NBC, buoyed by the success of the two-part movie “Switched at Birth,” won the prime-time sweeps after having had its long sweeps winning streak broken by CBS in February. CBS was second, averaging about half a point, or 465,000 households, less than NBC. ABC trailed badly, finishing more than 1 million homes behind NBC, while Fox grabbed an average of just over half the audience of NBC.

NBC, which had experienced a 13% decline during the official 1990-91 television season that concluded last month, gained about 2% over last May. Both CBS, ABC and Fox were down slightly over their totals of a year ago, while the Big Three networks’ share of the prime-time viewing audience remained steady at 61%.

In other sweeps highs and lows for the Los Angeles area:

* “Oprah” at 3 p.m. on KABC smashed all talk-show competition, doubling the audience of “Donahue” at 3 p.m. on KNBC and “Geraldo” at 4 p.m. on Channel 2 in Nielsen. The program’s margins in Arbitron were not as extreme, but it still led “Donahue” by more than 160,000 homes. “Sally Jessy Raphael” at 2 p.m. on KCAL finished with numbers comparable to those of both “Donahue” and “Geraldo.”

* “Donahue” repeats scored well at 9 a.m. on KNBC, knocking off longtime morning talk champ “A.M. Los Angeles.” “Live With Regis and Kathie Lee” on KCAL trailed even “I Love Lucy” reruns on KTTV and “The Family Feud” on KCBS in this time period.

* Though the “Today” show still trails “Good Morning America” nationally, it beat all morning show competition in Los Angeles, airing on KNBC. “Good Morning, America” on KABC was a close second while “CBS This Morning” on KCBS finished a distant third.

* “Hunter,” canceled this week by NBC, continues to excel in reruns on KTLA as it again finished as the top-rated program between 6-7 p.m. The action cop show beat all local and national newscasts on the network-owned stations as well as such sitcoms as “Growing Pains,” “Who’s the Boss?” and “Family Ties” on the other independents.

* “Wheel of Fortune” on Channel 2 spun to the top of the heap at 7 p.m., followed by “Entertainment Tonight” on Channel 4, “Love Connection” on Channel 9, KABC’s “Inside Edition,” “The Cosby Show” on Channel 13, “Studs” on Channel 11 and “Out of This World” on Channel 5, as measured by Arbitron. “Wheel of Fortune” also won in Nielsen.

* “Jeopardy” was the big winner at 7:30 p.m. for KCBS in Nielsen, with “Hard Copy” finishing second. The two programs flip-flopped in Arbitron. “Current Affair” on KTTV was third in both services.

* “Cheers” the nation’s favorite prime-time series, is also this area’s favorite late-night entertainment show. Airing at 11 p.m. on Channel 5, reruns of the long-running sitcom beat newscasts on both Channels 2 and 7 as well as “The Arsenio Hall Show” on Channel 13. “Cheers” also had a much larger audience than “The Tonight Show,” “Late Night With David Letterman,” “Nightline” and “Into the Night.”