Candidates Will Be Heard, but Might Not Be Seen : Television: The major commercial stations in L.A. have no plans to show the Democratic gubernatorial debate Wednesday, but KABC-AM will air the event live.

What if they staged a major election debate and nobody watched?

That very well could be the case next week when the three major Democratic gubernatorial candidates square off in Los Angeles for the last of three debates before the June 7 primary election.

The debate between state treasurer Kathleen Brown, Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi and state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) on Wednesday will air live at 1 p.m. on KABC-AM (790), but the seven major commercial television stations are not planning to broadcast the event or to become involved with staging any other debates between the candidates.

In addition, the stations apparently have no plans to pick up a live feed of a San Francisco debate involving the same trio on Tuesday. That event is being televised live at 6 p.m. by San Francisco stations KRON-TV and KQED-FM.

(C-SPAN, the cable channel devoted to public affairs, may cover the Wednesday event in L.A.)

Officials at the local stations cite a variety of reasons for not broadcasting or staging a primary gubernatorial debate, ranging from economics to anticipated low viewer interest. The debates are also taking place during the critical May sweeps, in which ratings help determine advertising rates for the coming months, and the debates are not seen as a great viewer draw.

Many said they would be more interested in being involved in a debate between the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial front-runners before the November election.

The decision not to broadcast the primary debates was attacked by spokespersons for the candidates and other political experts who accused the local stations of placing a higher priority on covering sensational crime than government issues.

“It’s just totally irresponsible for TV stations not to carry the debates,” said Larry Berg, director of USC’s Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics. “They’re not living up to their responsibility to the public to give access to candidates who would be governing a state of 30 million people. They just operate on the assumption that people aren’t interested. Maybe they’re not interested because there’s no coverage.”

Duane Peterson, Hayden’s campaign manager, said, “L.A. citizens are kept ignorant of politics in favor of endless coverage of the Menendez murder trial or other flashy but meaningless so-called news.”

Hayden said the apparent lack of interest in the debates corresponds to the lack of coverage of state politics. He said the last time Los Angeles television stations had a correspondent based in the state capital was 1988.

“There are networks in Los Angeles which will make millions of dollars off candidates peddling their 30-second promotional commercials, then they’ll turn around and tell us it’s not profitable to cover the debates,” Hayden said.

Darry Sragow, Garamendi’s campaign manager, said, “It’s a real outrage. Viewers feel disconnected from candidates because they never hear or see any of them. It’s a gross breach of the television industry’s duty to cover politics.”

While many stations declined to respond to the criticism, Alan Nesbitt, general manager of KABC-TV Channel 7, insisted that his station was interested in the gubernatorial race.

“We will be very interested in the debate between the two top nominees,” Nesbitt said. “Also, we have covered this extensively. Viewers can get information from our newscasts. We have had all three of the candidates on our Sunday morning show, ‘L.A. Extra.’ There will be lots of debates and lots of different opportunities for viewers to see the candidates.”

Bruce Cain, a political science professor at UC Berkeley, said he understood the stations’ reluctance to carry the primary debates.

“Even presidential debates have attracted relatively minor audiences,” Cain said. “Brown’s (poll) numbers have been stable, so it’s really not much of a race. So it’s a matter of logic for the stations: Why should they carry something when there’s not all that much at stake? But it’s still sad when they treat it as a foregone conclusion.”

Santo Iyengar, a professor of political science at UCLA, said, “In a perfect world, voters should have widespread opportunities to see these candidates debate. But it’s a market-oriented society and stations have to be concerned about the bottom line.”