Will War Affect What We Watch During Sweeps? : Television: Comedies, traditional shows and pure escapist fare appeal to viewers most during a crisis, a CBS executive says.

Television’s February ratings sweeps may be swept away by the Persian Gulf War.

But the networks, expecting that viewers will seek out escapist fare to leaven the sobering war reports, are proceeding with entertainment plans.

Everything, of course, is subject to preemption. And if ground fighting breaks out soon, as many expect, war coverage will take on a new dimension.

The Nielsen sweeps, which begin Thursday, could give some clues to the state of mind of viewers. CBS already thinks it has been tipped off by the success earlier this week of the rerun of “Lonesome Dove,” a Western full of simple, old-fashioned American values, far removed from the present.

And a planned CBS weekend in mid-February, with specials celebrating famous old series--”The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “All in the Family”--will be an ultimate escape to the past.

The rosy glow of nostalgia makes it especially easy for younger viewers to forget that the Moore series and “All in the Family” arrived during the Vietnam War.

In the current surreal atmosphere of television, “Twin Peaks” suddenly seems quaint, pale--and definitely less weird--by comparison.

And imagine the quandary of NBC’s new series, “Sunday Best,” which premieres Feb. 3, with Carl Reiner as host, and looks at the past week in TV. It was supposed to be funny, but real life--and television--are quite a different matter these days.

Still, says David Poltrack, vice president for research at CBS, comedies, traditional shows and pure escapism appeal most to viewers during a crisis.

“Our feeling is that what won’t hold up,” he says, “is something that is inherently depressing itself. Tear-jerkers and disease-of-the-week TV movies won’t work in this environment. People are not looking for something else to depress them.”

With war news, winter weather and a desire for escapism combining to keep viewers watching TV, Poltrack thinks the sweeps may result in an “extraordinarily high” tune-in level. He emphasizes that he means a “collective” tune-in including independent stations and cable channels such as CNN, which has seen its ratings soar during the Gulf War.

What the Middle East conflict has proved is that viewers, buffeted as they may be by an unending flood of news, are not turning it off.

Quite the contrary.

For much of the past week, for instance, CNN’s prime-time audience continued to run five to six times its normal size--and that didn’t include the added stations that have been carrying its coverage.

Sweeps programming on ABC, CBS and NBC may well include a number of news specials. Says Poltrack:

“We’ve tried to put regularly scheduled, prime-time news hours into our schedule, and it’s worked successfully. We’ve tried to combine the news and entertainment needs of our viewers. Each of our news specials has outperformed the usual time period numbers by about 20%.”

On Wednesday, for instance, CBS combined a “48 Hours” program on the war with the third episode of “Lonesome Dove.” CBS won last week’s ratings and took the first three nights of this week (with one tie).

With the networks spending huge sums on war coverage, losing advertising money because of the conflict--and trying to aid their stations during the sweeps, which help determine local ad rates--there will be every effort to deliver escapist shows.

If the war doesn’t blow away the Feb. 17 lineup, it will provide perhaps the biggest competition of the sweeps. Going head-to-head for two hours on that Sunday night will be CBS’ “The Very Best of the Ed Sullivan Show,” hosted by Carol Burnett, and ABC’s remake of “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,” starring sisters Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave.

A third entry will be the first half of an NBC miniseries, “Love, Lies and Murder.” It’s based on a true story about two teen-age girls persuaded to commit murder by a person they love and trust.

As it happens, NBC’s long-planned specials during the sweeps are heavy on terror, violence and crime, including “The Marla Hanson Story,” a Feb. 4 film about the New York model who was the victim of a razor attack. It will be instructive to see if viewers, with wartime violence dominating TV, reject such themes in favor of CBS’ happier, nostalgic specials.

Yet another NBC special promising violence, a wrestling hour called “The Main Event,” is scheduled next Friday. And NBC hopes to cash in Feb. 6 with a one-hour special celebrating five years of “L.A. Law,” with Jane Pauley as host.

Over at ABC, a Feb. 3 and 4 miniseries that normally might not seem terribly interesting, “Son of the Morning Star,” becomes a curiosity in the current atmosphere because it is a Western about Gen. George Custer (played by Gary Cole) and the Plains Indian wars.

Miniseries during the sweeps could test the networks’ commitment to war coverage because preemptions would break up multimillion-dollar productions. Poltrack says flatly that if “Lonesome Dove” had been scheduled for its first run this week--rather than as a repeat--CBS “probably would have pulled it because of all that money involved.”

CBS certainly seems to have the most relaxing sweeps specials to give a breather from the war mood. Next Friday, it offers “George Burns’ 95th Birthday Party.” On Feb. 4, it has “Cher . . . at the Mirage,” from the Las Vegas hotel.

On Feb. 10, CBS waxes nostalgic again with the drama “Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter,” starring Frances Fisher and Maurice Benard as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in the years leading up to “I Love Lucy.”

But CBS’ lineup for Feb. 16-18 is its sweeps centerpiece. On Feb. 16, there is the “All in the Family 20th Anniversary Special,” hosted by producer Norman Lear. On Feb. 17, it’s the Ed Sullivan tribute. And Feb. 18 brings “Mary Tyler Moore: The 20th Anniversary Show,” hosted by Moore.

A very smart package regardless of the ratings.

CBS also has two featherweight events that might take on added appeal because of the somber national mood--the Grammy Awards Feb. 20 and the Miss Universe Pageant Feb. 22.

The key to TV programming during the war, Poltrack says, is assuming that people want some normal entertainment “but still want to follow the situation in the gulf. That is bringing the light TV viewer to the set more consistently, knowing that by having the set on and being attentive to it, he or she will be immediately more aware of news events.”

That has to be TV’s goal. Ratings are a trivial pursuit at the moment.