TV PREP FOOTBALL WALKS FINE LINE.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH MEDIA

The warning lights are flashing again at the intersection of good, clean entertainment and dangerous overexposure -- this time, for the media outlets that have figured out new ways to tap into the money-making machine of televised high school football as they battle in the trenches over which games they'll get to show in the coming months.

With NBC's new fall drama ``Friday Night Lights'' about the tension- filled Texas prep football scene serving as more than just a backdrop, the real stuff seems to be a hotter commodity for programmers, some of which have tried to stay ahead of the curve by going with live Internet video streaming to bring those ``can't-miss'' national games to a younger, high-tech audience.

Locally, Jimmy Clausen-led Oaks Christian of Westlake Village, which will generate plenty of buzz, is guaranteed at least two national exposures -- Sept. 22 vs. St. Bonaventure on FSN Prime Ticket and all its regional affiliates, and then Sept. 28 vs. Venice on ESPN2. They'll also be featured at least once (Sept. 8 at Muir) on a new national webcast site called Vootage.com, spearheaded by the ProAngle production company headed by Jeff Proctor and Steve Rangel.

Before your TiVo spins off its axis, let's take a look at the benefits to players and schools with all this added attention: Given that interest in national college recruiting is at an all-time high, especially on the Internet, fans can get familiar with players before they enter the next level, and schools gain immeasurable exposure (and some funding). Plus, and hopefully most important, football in perhaps its purest form is on display.

And the cons: Too much exposure can corrupt the process, give a false sense of importance to everyone and widen the chasm between the haves and have-nots even more.

``This shouldn't be a TV show about a football game but a football game that's on TV, presented in the right context,'' said John Costello, the director of marketing for the CIF Southern Section, which just signed a three-year revenue-sharing deal with FSN Prime Ticket that ends up paying each school up to $2,000 for a TV appearance.

``We don't want to sell out the games or the players. High school is still all about a sense of community, and we see the communities go bananas when the game is on TV. Our objective is to expand it. We don't see it as a negative.''

On the first tier of programming, there's LA36, the non-profit Los Angeles City-run channel, which has six City Section games on tape-delay, starting with tonight's Crespi-Birmingham contest, plus the Dec. 8 City championship from the Coliseum that it shares with KLCS Channel 58. Games are also repeated on www.la36.org.

FSN, in its 10th season covering local high school football (mostly the Southern Section), does network-quality coverage on its 10-game schedule. This season, it has added the state championship game in December at Home Depot Center in the first of a three-year deal.

``Our focus won't be so much on the Xs and Os as it is telling the stories about the players and promoting the entire high school experience,'' said Steven ``Hoover'' Dorfman, the FSN Prime Ticket high school game producer who lives in Woodland Hills and was a standout kicker for the Montclair Prep of Van Nuys teams of the early '80s. ``The emotions, the camaraderie and the fun, those are the most compelling elements to these broadcasts.''

Taking it up a notch is when ``Friday Night'' syndrome may kick in.

FSN West and Prime Ticket have access to eight Nike-sponsored FSN- produced games of ``national interest,'' starting with tonight's game between Hoover, Ala. -- considered to the nation's top-ranked team and the focus of an MTV reality show called ``Two-A-Days'' -- and Tulsa (Okla.) Union.

And then there's the monolith -- ESPN, in conjunction with ESPN2 and ESPNU -- which boosted its coverage from three to a combined 13 games this season, and last week televised its first contest.

Even ESPN ombudsman George Solomon is skittish about the network's new aggressive high school football approach, writing Thursday in his monthy online critique: ``Though I know I'm out of touch on many issues, ESPN's pitting of prep football powers Glades (Fla.) Central against Byrnes of Duncan, S.C., on national television (last Saturday) tells the world high school sports are about winning, big-time recruits and ratings -- but not education.''

Like practically all TV media outlets covering preps, ESPN doesn't pay a direct rights fee to the schools, covering production costs with high-profile sponsors. With an accompanying Website (ESPNU.com) that focuses on pre-college talent, the games may as well be billed as: ``See tomorrow's college stars today.''

ESPNU general manager Burke Magnus says the network's approach to preps isn't to duplicate the NFL or colleges, but to ``give fans a broader look at the incoming (college) talent ... (and) provide many athletes the unique opportunity to showcase their skills at the national level for the first time in their career.''

The slippery slope to all this is we may only be a year or two removed from some creative programmer creating an all-high school sports channel with 24/7 programming, hoping it gets gobbled up by a bigger entity -- think College Sports TV being absorbed by CBS -- and then taking prep football past the age of innocence, something that the Little League World Series seems to have sailed past years ago.

Petros Papadakis, the former USC tailback in his third year of doing analysis for the Pac-10 game of the week, says he never had one of his high school games televised. But he agrees that the teenagers who do make it on TV today are more savvy and can, for the most part, handle the spotlight.

``Sometimes, it worries me that the games get prostituted,'' he said, ``but as long as they keep it real and not make it all about what colleges are recruiting which players, then you celebrate the right things about the game.

``You've got to let the kids live without overinflated expectations.''

CAPTION(S):

photo, 2 boxes

Photo:

Several TV networks are lined up to secure star-studded Oaks Christian, led by quarterback Jimmy Clausen, left, in their fall lineup.

Alex Collins/Special to the Daily News

Box:

(1) WHAT SMOKES

(2) WHAT CHOKES