Commentary: The awards broadcast hasn’t seemed so big or special for a long time. This year’s show could prove to be a pivotal one.

The television industry will be studying the ratings of Sunday night’s Emmy Awards with perhaps more than the usual interest.

If the tune-in is disappointing again, it may be time to take dramatic steps to revive audience attention.

After six years on Fox-TV, during which the once-popular awards show sank severely in viewer tune-in, the Emmy telecast returned to one of the Big Three networks--ABC--in 1993, and there were hopes that the popularity of the annual event would be restored.

It didn’t happen. Thanks in part to counterprogramming by other networks, ABC’s 1993 Emmy rating of 13.8 was actually lower than the 13.9 of the previous year on Fox. What was even more embarrassing, the show drew smaller numbers than the Daytime Emmy Awards.

The question is whether the Emmy Awards--the biggest annual income producer of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences--were undermined irrevocably by being licensed to Fox for a few shekels more. At the time, the virtually new Fox network was especially weak in its station lineup compared to ABC, CBS and NBC, and thus a smaller audience was almost a given.

Six years is a long time, and plenty of magic can--and did--disappear from a once-special night and broadcast.

But the Fox deal was not all that was happening during this time to affect tune-in. The network audience was diminishing each year because of cable, pay-TV and other viewing alternatives that were siphoning off audiences from the Big Three. And these defecting viewers thus figured to have less interest in the shows honored on the Emmys.

True, the Emmys finally embraced cable shows; but the increasingly fractionalized audience, with its accompanying tune-out of the networks, was bound to have an impact.

Nevertheless, even though popular entertainment series--such as “Roseanne” and “Seinfeld”--are getting smaller shares of the audience than hits of past years, there is no reason that a big, special night like the Emmy Awards can’t show some real clout.

The problem is that the Emmy show hasn’t seemed so big or special for quite a while.

For example, so long as the show is tape-delayed here in the West--with winners being revealed on other broadcast outlets even before the program begins--the TV industry’s biggest event will remain a poor cousin to the Academy Awards, which airs live coast-to-coast.

Is it possible to breathe new life into the Emmys? If the ratings are good enough to avoid panic after Sunday’s show, the industry will probably just shrug and forget about it until jolted again, as it was by the Fox debacle.

But no matter what, would it hurt to think of some added pizazz--for example, some really splashy pre- and post-awards network specials, as cable’s E! Entertainment Television channel is planning? ABC’s local station, KABC-TV Channel 7, is also planning a pre-Emmy show.

Having Bette Midler sing a number from “Gypsy,” in which she starred for CBS, is on the agenda for Sunday night’s Emmy show, and that’s fine, but not enough.

After the six-year decline on Fox, there was some talk, not taken very seriously, about having all the networks broadcast the Emmy show simultaneously--at least once--to make a huge splash and bring the audience back in dramatic fashion. Maybe it’s not such a crazy idea. Cable’s ACE Awards have aired live on a number of channels.

There are surely bound to be other, perhaps better, ideas out there in a town built on showmanship. If they don’t emerge soon, it may be too late to rekindle audience interest.

The TV academy has had some rocky years: the Fox deal; the previous banning of “The Simpsons” from eligibility for best comedy series; the argument over how guest stars should be recognized in the competition; and, finally, another fiasco when ABC was given the Emmy Awards exclusively in a multiyear pact, again for a few shekels more--a move that infuriated the other competing networks, who boycotted last year’s show and pulled their ads from Emmy magazine.

The academy reversed itself on the ABC pact in March, and the Emmys now will be rotated annually among all the networks starting in 1995.

Counterprogramming the Emmys, however, remains a fact of life. It didn’t just start last year against ABC. The other networks have to put on something , but they might remember that this, after all, is a program that is supposed to showcase virtually the entire industry.

Yet on Sunday, CBS is counterprogramming with a preview of a new sitcom, “The Boys Are Back,” followed by a rerun of “Steel Magnolias.” Fox has scheduled first-run episodes of such hits as “The Simpsons” and “Married . . . With Children.” And NBC will broadcast the film “Other People’s Money.”

How far back do the Emmys have to come to regain major viewer attention? Consider some numbers:

In 1986, the year before Fox began showing the awards, NBC earned a 23.1 rating. In 1987, Fox’s rating was 8.8. In following years, Fox got a 10.7 in 1988, an 11.4 in 1989 and finally had the industry throwing up its hands when it plummeted to an 8.2 in 1990, attracting only 14% of TV viewers. By 1992, Fox’s rating was up to a 13.9, with 24% of the audience, but the damage to the show’s image had been done.

The Emmy Awards actually begin tonight in Pasadena when technical and creative arts honors are bestowed at a preliminary, non-televised ceremony. One of the Emmys’ special honors, the Syd Cassyd Founders Award--named after the founder of the academy--will be presented to Hank Rieger, longtime editor and publisher of Emmy magazine. He was also my boss at the UPI Los Angeles bureau earlier in the century and, as I recall, always paid off my expense account on time. There is no higher praise.

On Sunday’s televised Emmy broadcast, the heavy favorite, of course, is ABC’s “NYPD Blue,” which earned 26 nominations, more than any weekly series in TV history. Other leading contenders with double-digit nominations include HBO’s “And the Band Played On,” NBC’s “Seinfeld” and “Frasier” and CBS’ “Gypsy” and “Picket Fences,” which won last year’s top honors.

A large number of nominations is by no means a guarantee of awards. Series such as “Northern Exposure,” “Miami Vice” and “Moonlighting” racked up numerous nominations, only to be blitzed when the actual prize-giving took place. However, shows produced by Steven Bochco--and “NYPD Blue” is one of them--tend to deliver. Bochco’s “Hill Street Blues” and “L.A. Law” are the all-time leaders in the best drama series category, with four Emmys apiece.

Lest we forget--and it’s very easy to forget Emmy winners--last year’s series victors included “Seinfeld” for comedy and “Picket Fences” for drama. Winners for best leading comedy actor and actress were Ted Danson for “Cheers” and Roseanne for “Rose- anne.” In drama, it was Tom Skerritt and Kathy Baker, both of “Picket Fences.”

But tomorrow is another day.