CBS Affiliates Have No Award for Grammycast : * Television: The four-hour telecast garners low ratings and pushes 11 p.m. newscasts past midnight during a crucial ratings period.

It was boffo in the ratings here. But elsewhere, the record four-hour Grammy Awards telecast from Radio City Music Hall generated the second-lowest ratings ever for the record industry awards show and turned what should have been a big help into a big problem for CBS affiliates, which had to delay their local newscasts during the crucial February sweeps.

“In most markets, the length of the prime-time show is likely to have a quite negative impact on local news ratings,” David Poltrack, executive vice president in charge of research for CBS, said in an interview Wednesday. “The additional length of the show hurt the program itself by stretching out the material on the show. The additional hour was a big factor in the lower national ratings--and it hurt in terms of the local-news lead-in.”

The A.C. Nielsen Co. reported that the telecast, which ran from 8 p.m. to midnight Tuesday--an hour longer than scheduled--got a 16.2 rating nationally, meaning its average audience was about 15.4 million homes. The only Grammy telecast to get a smaller rating was the one in 1989, which lasted 3 1/2 hours and garnered a 16 rating. Last years’ Grammy telecast achieved a 19.9 rating.

The hour overrun on Tuesday hurt because people started tuning out, presumably to go to bed. The rating at 11 p.m., for example, was 14. By 11:30, the figure dropped to 12.3, and by the end of the broadcast it was down to 8.4.

That brought down the average for the entire broadcast and also brought down the number of viewers being delivered to CBS affiliates for their late-night newscasts. Moreover, it delayed the newscasts until midnight, meaning that whatever audience was generated doesn’t count in the competition with other stations at 11 p.m. The stations are in the middle of an important survey period that helps determine advertising rates for the coming months.

“The Grammys ran on very long, and it took a very competitive night out of the (February ratings) book for us in terms of competing with other stations in Los Angeles,” said Steven Gigliotti, general manager of KCBS Channel 2. “It would have given us a great lead-in.”

KCBS-TV had a 4.7 rating for its midnight newscast. It has recently been averaging 7.2 at 11 p.m.

In fact, Gigliotti said, “it is possible” that the Grammy numbers “might have put us in first place to date in the sweeps so far” against KNBC Channel 4, with which, he said, KCBS is running “neck and neck” at 11 p.m.

But, he noted, KCBS also has benefited from the high lead-ins of CBS’ Olympics coverage in recent weeks. And, he said, the station perhaps got a sampling of viewers at midnight who might not otherwise have tuned in to the regular newscast at 11.

Neither the Grammy producers nor senior CBS programming executives could be reached for comment Wednesday, but other CBS sources said that the network was unhappy with the way the telecast was allowed to run over.

“The show wasn’t long because Barbra Streisand was singing for a long time--it was long because of the acceptance speeches and other filler,” said one executive. “I think there will be a meeting (with the producers) to assure that this doesn’t happen again.”

The Grammy show did better in New York, where it originated and where it had been heavily promoted on the local newscasts. WCBS-TV got a whopping 30 rating between 8 and 11 p.m., and even though viewership declined during the last hour, the station’s midnight news still outperformed its regular 11 p.m. rivals.

“Barbra Streisand (whose lifetime achievement award was not presented until after 11 p.m.) is a huge draw here, and we had done a lot of pre-Grammy stories,” said Dean Daniels, news director of WCBS-TV. “The Grammys were bad for the other guys but great for us. We beat their 11 o’clock newscasts at midnight.”