SIMPSON MURDER CASE : Big Screen, Small Screen View the Case From Different Angles : Television: Networks’ decision to carry live coverage cost them up to $1 million a day in lost revenues. But viewers stayed riveted to the hearing.

Friday’s dramatic conclusion of the preliminary hearing in the O.J. Simpson murder case came none too soon for the three major broadcast networks.

The decision to carry live daily coverage demonstrated the power of network television by turning the focus of an entire country on a Los Angeles courtroom. The total number of households using television steadily climbed each day this week, reaching 18% above normal viewership levels on Thursday, according to preliminary figures released Friday by the A.C. Nielsen Co. Half of those homes were watching Simpson’s hearing on the three networks.

But each of the broadcast networks lost as much as $1 million a day in advertising revenue by dumping their regularly scheduled programming, according to network sources. In addition, they angered droves of loyal soap opera fans, thousands of whom flooded ABC, NBC and CBS with complaints.

Still, despite the complaints and the lost revenue, the networks wanted to cover the story that has captivated the nation, and viewers were glued to their sets.

“Soap opera fans have complained, but the ratings show people were riveted,” said CBS executive Lane Venardos on Friday, shortly after Municipal Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell ruled that there was enough evidence to proceed with a murder trial.

Venardos, who directed CBS’ live courtroom coverage, has been working from 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. since the hearing began, producing live daily coverage and evening news specials.

When ABC briefly turned away Wednesday for an hour to broadcast its long-running daytime drama “One Life to Live,” viewers switched over to CBS and NBC. ABC’s ratings dropped 32% and never fully recovered the rest of the day, even after returning to the hearing.

“This is a major story,” said Bill Croasdale, who is in charge of buying network commercial time for Western International Media. “And, despite their concern about lost ad revenue and irate soap fans, none of the networks wants to be pilloried in the press for running soap operas instead of in-depth Simpson coverage.”

During the slow summer months of TV reruns, the Simpson case dominated U.S. television from morning until night. O.J. Simpson was the constant subject of morning news shows, daytime courtroom coverage, evening newscasts, evening tabloid shows, prime-time newsmagazines and late-night news wrap-ups.

Cable television’s CNN did not have the financial problems of the broadcast networks in terms of lost revenue from soap operas. CNN’s live coverage of the hearing pulled in some of its highest ratings outside of its Persian Gulf War coverage.

“This is an amazing story--I don’t think anybody at the start of this week thought that we would all be there live for five days straight,” said one network source.

National network ratings are only available for the first two days of the hearing. On June 30, the three major broadcast networks and cable’s CNN had a combined afternoon rating of 18, translating into nearly 17 million homes out of a total of 94 million TV households in the nation. But nobody can determine how many viewers actually watched the proceedings because in workplaces across the country groups of employees clustered around single TV sets.

The ratings dipped slightly July 1, but preliminary Nielsen figures show that ratings climbed steadily over this past week when witnesses began testifying.

Network executives said that it was too soon to tell how they will cover the trial. Given the intense viewer interest, however, they are leaving open the possibility of more gavel-to-gavel coverage.

“We haven’t made any decisions yet,” Venardos said, “but I could see the networks offering live, daily coverage of the trial, at least in the beginning and perhaps for significant portions of the trial. I can’t see the trial being (any) less interesting than the hearing.”