BY DAVID BAUDER
The Associated Press
NEW YORK -- If the House eventually votes to hold open impeachment hearings on President Clinton, cable TV viewers will have no shortage of channels on which to watch the proceedings.
CNN, C-SPAN, Court TV, Fox News Channel and MSNBC all said they would carry gavel-to-gavel coverage, or something very close to it. The House is scheduled to vote Thursday on whether to go ahead with a full inquiry, which probably would include hearings.
"An impeachment hearing is such a rare occurence that I can't imagine we would not take it live," said Sid Bedingfield, executive vice president of CNN - USA.
The broadcast networks, through which viewers watched the Watergate scandal unfold 25 years ago, anticipate following any Clinton hearings closely but aren't sure how much they would show. About one-quarter of the nation's TV homes don't have cable or satellite.
Networks like ABC, NBC and CBS must consider advertisers and viewers of daytime TV before deciding to cover hearings. Soap opera fans complained when Clinton's grand jury video pre-empted their favorites, and the networks reportedly lost millions because of commercials that didn't run.
The broadcast networks are likely to make daily decisions based on who is testifying and what the competition is doing, said Lane Venardos, executive producer for special events at CBS.
"If we weren't on the air, we'd be ready to go on the air," Venardos said.
During Watergate and the Iran-Contra hearings, the three top broadcasters agreed to rotate gavel-to-gavel coverage. Each network had the option of showing the hearing even on days its turn wasn't up. Bob Murphy, ABC senior vice president for hard news, said that idea may be broached again.
TV executives will also have to consider whether the hearings will produce much news in a story they have been all over since January.
"You always consider the question -- how much more Monica can they take, how much more O.J. can they take?" said Chet Collier, senior vice president of programming at Fox News Channel. "Probably a lot more than those of us in the business ever imagined."
