PERSPECTIVE ON TELEVISION : The Medium Finds Its Good Side : The networks, in cooperating to air an important child-abuse program, show their public-service potential.

In this political season, TV has come in for a lot of criticism, most of it deserved. Tonight, however, television deserves our respectful attention, both to a single remarkable program and to the medium’s potential to focus national attention on important issues.

“Scared Silent,” airing tonight on PBS, CBS and NBC, and on ABC Sunday night, is about child abuse. Narrated by Oprah Winfrey, the program is both uncharacteristically graphic by television standards and uncharacteristically informative. Significantly, “Scared Silent” concerns behavior within families, thus burying forever the pervasive and media-made myth of the 1980s that our children are most likely to be abused by strangers. The program’s shock value, and there is plenty of that, has a purpose: to introduce us to the strangers in ourselves.

Most important, however, is that the impact of this important program will be exponentially greater because of the networks’ agreement to air it at the same time. In 1962, when the senior author of this piece was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, he urged the then-three networks to cooperate on a public-service schedule of programming for children. For a short time they did, but the effort fell apart under competitive pressure.

“Scared Silent” shows us the benefits such cooperation can yield. The program, though not for children, is about them, focusing attention on a segment of the population that television has itself treated badly. The simulcast will give channel-flipping viewers pause, greatly broadening the show’s exposure. Even with the growth of cable, broadcast television is still our most pervasive source of information and entertainment. Like child abuse, it reaches homes of every social and economic level.

Some will surely point out that ABC, whose popular “20/20” is the usual winner in tonight’s 10 p.m. time slot, opted not to participate but will instead air the program on Sunday. What’s more, PBS, CBS and NBC all got the show for free, from an insurance institution that produced and paid for it; the two commercial networks have only to sell a few ads to stay in the black.

Still, the networks are performing, however passively, a distinct public service. Their cooperation gives the lie to the two pillars of the supply-side gospel of the television marketplace. First, unbridled competition does not provide public-interest television of this quality; and second, programs of this type, delivered as this one will be, do not have to be financial disasters. By cooperating for an hour instead of competing against each other, the networks will give millions of families the opportunity to share a valuable learning experience.

A wise person once said that competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people. Cooperation can sometimes bring out the best of both, as demonstrated by recent PBS/NBC cooperation in covering the Democratic and Republican conventions. We need to find new, imaginative ways for broadcasters to pool their talents and resources to better serve the public interest. Tonight’s experiment will demonstrate that it is possible to avoid exploitation in favor of information.

Indeed, for all of its tabloid potential, including the use of re-enactments and moments manufactured for the camera, “Scared Silent” succeeds precisely because it isn’t a built-to-order piece of competitive journalism. The program relies considerably less on the personal appeal of the host, for instance, than on the stories of the people it portrays. Winfrey provides transition from one segment of the program to the next, adds several useful bits of information and then gets out of the way.

Thirty-four years ago, when Americans first had the opportunity to face the issue of what television can contribute to society, Edward R. Murrow told us: “This instrument can teach; it can illuminate; yes, it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely lights and wires in a box.” A confluence of technological, economic and cultural changes has brought us around to this issue again. Perhaps this generation will have the wisdom to choose differently.