More to TV Life Than the Weather : Television: Forget cable’s dull, narrow narrowcasting--like the Weather Channel. How about the Clinton Channel? Or the Murder and Mayhem Channel? Or, the. . . .

Narrowcasting--setting out a banquet of dips and dishes for every taste--is television’s best use. Although the much-discussed 500-channel universe is not yet here, many of the nation’s 11,000-plus cable systems have already diversified by shuffling and expanding their offerings in response to new government rules regulating the industry.

Beneficiaries include viewers, of course, but also older cable networks that are now getting exposure in some areas for the first time. Three cheers for variety. Television should be a rainbow of choices.

But what’s the deal with this 24-hour thing called the Weather Channel?

Just how it has survived for more than 11 years--appearing to give as much time to commercials as weather--is a mystery. The commercials have to be perpetual, apparently, because no one is going to hang around the Weather Channel very long. Audience tune-out and turnover must be enormous, for if you’re inside all day watching the Weather Channel, you’ve no need to know what the weather is outside.

Flip to the Weather Channel, with its round-the-clock weathercasters and national, regional and local maps, and you get chunks of TV like this:

“Cold in Chicago, Des Moines, below zero in Minneapolis . . . and the South, nothing much to get excited about . . . looking north to Alaska, 6 in Fairbanks . . . clouds in motion for you now . . . on the radar, little bit of snow showing up, nothing much to get excited about . . . looks like there’s going to be some snow moving into D.C. . . . a look ahead . . . certainly the colder air . . . the jet stream . . . Atlanta-Birmingham, at least it may get into the teens . . . another shot of cold air . . . the five-day business planner . . . we had a few drops . . . in the Northeast, terrible windchills up in Maine. Maybe you’ll survive the day . . . the Southeast looks like the best place to be. . . .”

So be it. Weather freaks have rights, too.

When it comes to narrowcasting, though, there are many more creative ways to serve the public. Don’t forget, it was in this space that you read exclusively about proposals for specialized Amy Fisher and car chase channels. In that same tradition, please consider:

* The Bill Clinton Channel: Yes, all the latest nasty rumors and innuendo about the President. If he’s caught winking at Janet Reno, you hear about it here.

* The Dysfunctional Family Channel: The “Godfather” movies and reruns of “Married . . . With Children” would be just the ticket, as would the very latest on the Reagans, Bobbitts, Menendezes and Woody and Mia, and of course, everything that’s fit to report about the Jacksons. However, the latter may require a channel of their own. As NBC/Mutual radio reporter Steve Futterman noted recently, “The Jacksons make the Manson family look almost functional.”

* The Murder and Mayhem Channel: Given the nation’s present disposition, this would be an instant 24-hour hit. A sample:

“Good morning. We’ve got some more of those serial slayings in central Kentucky, but not enough to amount to anything. Now as we move into the upper Mississippi Valley, we see some sniper activity that should clear up soon, and some light machine-gun fire in the South producing some counterproductive paranoia. Seattle-Portland could pick up some bloodshed early this evening, and as we move eastward we see some light gang activity and just a trace of homophobic thrashing. Meanwhile, count your blessings, Baltimore, thanks to fast work by the bomb squad. But some exploitative political speeches on crime are causing some trickiness in the D.C. area.

“Checking our satellite picture, we’ve got some gunfire just beginning in northern Arizona, and as we move in a southerly direction we see a narrow band of beatings and carjackings, with some hazardous conditions due to rising terroristic pressure and some new drug highs. And moving through the Midwest, my goodness, a possibility of record muggings for this time of year. And we’ll also be keeping an eye on that overzealous vigilante activity in the Corn Belt.

“Looking at the numbers now, we see three bodies at International Falls, 11 at Pittsburgh, the same for Little Rock. In Buffalo, 15 inches of blood in some spots--could be some stabbing flare-ups there--and look at Chicago, soaring to a record high of 18 armed robberies. Plus, we’ll be keeping an eye on this secondary surge of fatalities in Southern California, where felonious assaults are coming off the coast and intensifying. That should ease up for you as the police lay down some covering fire that allows you folks in that area to make your escape. Or you could try fleeing through the smog.

“Let’s show you what’s happening on the radar. The red blotches are self-explanatory. And anything falling out of the sky, should it be nuclear, will wipe out this area right here.

“Now some current local conditions. You folks in Port Hueneme better not leave home just yet. We do have some escaped convict activity in your area, and that should clear up for you as soon as the National Guard rolls in.

“Random violence, mixed with flurries of arson and crimes of passion, picking up just a bit in San Diego. No organized crime reported in the Palm Springs area, but that could change as corruption builds. We’ll get to that in our extended forecast of gore. And we’ll also have that five-day political assassination report just a little bit later.

“Just about everywhere else, we’re finding a prevalence of bitterly cold hearts. So a word to the wise from your friends at the Murder and Mayhem Channel: Don’t go out without bundling up in your flak jacket or bullet-proof vest.”