DELAY ENDS FUSSING OVER CUSSING.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH The Media

Considering it's Shaquille O'Neal who has done more to force local channels into altering its technology on sports telecasts, the Lakers center might as well be calling himself ``The Big Precursor.''

KABC-Channel 7, stung by having its live microphones catch both O'Neal and Karl Malone use off-color language in locker-room settings after two Lakers national telecasts, is the latest to convert to using a five-second delay on all interviews, starting with Sunday's ``Sports Zone.''

A player cursing during a live one-on-one interview with a reporter who can tell him they're on live is one thing - such as O'Neal did with KCAL's John Ireland on Super Bowl Sunday. But KABC has sort of pushed the line of interviewing etiquette further by sending reporters into the media group locker-room setting with a live mike and camera to supplement its postgame shows.

In most cases, players aren't accustomed to being on live when in front of their lockers and often drop off-color language knowing it will be cleaned up by print reporters or edited out by TV crews using it in a later broadcast.

Bill Burton, KABC's vice president of programming, said it's not simple enough anymore to tell an athlete he's on live, no matter what the arrangement.

``There are no guarantees (athletes won't curse) even if we tell them it's a live broadcast,'' said Burton, who admitted he wasn't even aware of the slipup nearly two weeks ago after the Lakers-San Antonio game when Malone's curse word went out over the air. ``We can't rely on the people we interview. We can hope they're helpful and respectful, but we need to be the ones responsible about what goes out over our airwaves.

``People are very sensitive about this issue and the FCC is very focused on it. We're taking it all very seriously.''

Starting with the NCAA men's basketball tournament, KCBS-Channel 2 has been using a seven-second delay when it airs coach and player postgame interviews on its ``SportsCentral'' show. Jeff Proctor, the senior executive producer for sports at Channel 2 and KCAL-Channel 9, said he has not heard any viewer complaints about this change in policy, as if anyone even knew it was happening.

``In a perfect world we wouldn't have to do it, but given the current political climate, it makes sense,'' Proctor said.

Proctor said Channel 9 also will try to cut away more quickly from incidents on the field when it's obvious a player is upset after striking out and begins to yell at the umpire, as happened in an Angels telecast last Saturday in Texas in a situation involving Troy Glaus.

Major League Baseball's new policy to allow its national TV partners to interview players and managers live during games, as ESPN has been doing on its Sunday night telecasts in recent weeks, could be the next pitfall a reporter steps in during this ongoing saga.

``There's no directive from the FCC right now, but we're certainly sensitive to the issue and concerned about repercussions,'' said Fox Sports executive producer Ed Goren, whose network plans to do more live interviews starting with tonight's Yankees-Red Sox telecast.

Added Fox Sports chairman David Hill: ``We are invited guests into a family's living room and it's not right to subject them to profanity or obscenities. We've given it a great deal of thought and do have a policy in place. We don't want to offend anyone.''

--Curious scheduling: Considering the three highest-rated NBA games on ABC this year involved the Lakers and the Los Angeles market nearly doubled the national average (4.7 vs. 2.4) when it came to watching the games on Sunday afternoons, it came as a bit of a surprise to many that the Lakers-Houston Game 1 wasn't slotted into the network's Sunday 12:30 p.m. window.

Instead, Game 1 of the Sacramento-Dallas series goes there, and the Lakers-Rockets start Saturday on both ESPN (with Mike Breen and Bill Walton) and Fox Sports Net (with Paul Sunderland and Stu Lantz).

``We look at the playoffs in totality from mid-April through June to give all our TV partners the best possible schedule for the fans,'' NBA spokesman Mike Bass said. ``It's hard to argue that Sacramento-Dallas isn't an intriguing matchup.''

Said ABC spokesman Mark Mandel: ``From our standpoint, the schedule works out pretty well for ESPN and ABC.''

With the best-of-seven format instead of best-of-five, there will be a fourth game in the Lakers-Rockets series, which has already been slotted for ABC on April 25 at Houston. TNT (with Kevin Harlan and Doug Collins) and Fox Sports Net have Monday's Game 2. ESPN and KCAL-Channel 9 have next Friday's Game 3.

For the first round, FSN and Channel 9 maintain local broadcasting rights to the home and road games, as they did during the regular season, unless a game is an ABC Sunday contest.

In a conference call before the first-round pairings were announced, ESPN programming executive Mark Shapiro said the Lakers, Sacramento and Dallas are the marquee teams any network would want this time of year.

``We would love to kick off the playoffs with the Lakers, but we just want the best all-around schedule,'' Shapiro said. ``We don't want to compromise one week at the expense of the whole slate.''

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By Tom Hoffarth