The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro JIM LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, a new anti cholesterol drug was approved for sale. Iraq attacked more Iranians targets in the Persian Gulf, and Jewish leaders met with the Pope. We'll have the details in our news summary in a moment. Robin? ROBERT MacNEIL: After the news summary, two scientists describe the drug they helped develop to fight cholesterol. Then, how the new people meters will affect television. We have a documentary report and a discussion. Next, an up to date documentary look inside Iran. And finally, essayist Amei Wallace looks at the fight over restoring the Sistine Chapel. News Summary LEHRER: The Food and Drug Administration today approved a new anti cholesterol drug. It's called Lovastatin. The FDA said it is the first of several new drugs that clinical trials show as highly effective in reducing cholesterol levels. Lovastatin reduced total cholesterol from 18 to 34%, the worst kind, low density lipoprotein, or LDL, from 19 to 39%. At a Washington news conference today, Dr. Antonio Gotto, who has done research on the drug, said it could prove a major new tool in combatting heart disease.

Dr. ANTONIO GOTTO, cholesterol researcher: The bottom line from these studies is that if one lowers the level of cholesterol in the blood by 1%, there will be a 2 to 3% reduction in the number of heart attacks and the number of people dying of coronary heart disease deaths. Not only does it appear that coronary disease, or coronary heart disease death is reduced by lowering cholesterol, but that if one has a lower level of cholesterol, that over a 30 year period then one has the greatest chance of surviving in our society. LEHRER: The FDA's approval means the drug can now be sold by prescription. The manufacturer who developed it is Merck Sharpe & Dome. It plans to sell it under the brandname, ''Mevacor. '' Robin? MacNEIL: In the Persian Gulf, Iraq claimed its planes attacked four ships and two Iranian cities. Iran claims it shot down three Iraqi fighters over the Gulf. An Iraqi pilot who said he was shot down on Saturday, was picked up by the U. S. S. Guadalcanal. Two reflagged Kuwaiti tankers reached their home waters safely with an escort of U. S. warships. The U. S. said that if Iran doesn't observe the U. N. cease fire order by the end of this week, the Security Council should begin preparing sanctions. The State Department said Iran's stalling is unacceptable. But Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Petrovsky at a Washington news conference, called for more U. S. /Soviet cooperation.

VLADIMIR PETROVSKY, Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister: I consider that the Soviet/American cooperation is not only possible, it is necessary this (unintelligible). You know, in the interdependent world in which we live, there is no other way than to cooperate among all the countries, and in particular between the Soviet Union and United States, due to their position in the world, and due to the fact that they have the largest nuclear arsenals in the world. MacNEIL: Petrovsky went on to urge restraint in the Gulf by all countries, particularly the United States, because of what he called the increasing naval presence of this country. LEHRER: Nine Jewish leaders met with Pope John Paul II today at the Pope's summer residence outside Rome. The purpose was to discuss new tensions that had developed between Jews and the Pope following his June 25 audience with Austrian President Kurt Waldheim. Waldheim is barred from visiting the United States because of charges he helped deport Jews to concentration camps while serving as a World War II German army officer. Those attending today's meeting said the Waldheim issue was raised, as was the Vatican's refusal to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. The Pope reportedly did not respond directly to either, but did say he planned to issue a major statement on anti Semitism and the holocaust. The Vatican meeting lasted 75 minutes. MacNEIL: In Thailand, at least 39 bodies have been recovered from the wreckage of a jetliner which crashed yesterday. Frogmen located the cockpit voice recorder from the wreckage of the Thai Airways plane that plunged into the sea off the resort island of Phuket. Eight three persons were aboard the airliner, two of them Americans. And officials say they're virtually certain there were no survivors. In South Africa, ten miners were dead, and 40 others missing and presumed dead today. Officials of the St. Helena Gold Mine said they believed the missing miners were trapped in an elevator that plunged to the bottom of a 4600 foot shaft after an explosion yesterday. There is no hope that any of the people are still alive, a mine spokesman said late today. Ten bodies have been recovered from the mine. Investigators think methane gas caused the explosion. LEHRER: Back in this country, teacher strikes in Detroit and seven other Michigan school districts kept classrooms empty on the first day of school. There were also teacher strikes in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Washington state. But New York City schools and the United Federation of Teachers agreed on a new contract that would raise top teachers' ultimately to $50,000 a year. Lightning has set off hundreds of forest fires in three western states. More than 700 are ablaze in Northern California, 400 in Southern Oregon, with others reported in Idaho. Forest service officials say the fires were started by thousands of lightning strikes between Sunday and Monday nights. MacNEIL: There was mixed economic news today. The Commerce Department reported that the index of leading indicators rose half a percent in July, the sixth month in a row it has risen. The government said a key factor was the recent jump in stock prices. Commerce also reported that new orders for factory goods fell in July by . 2%. Today, the stock market turned down, with the Dow Jones average off almost 52% points. That's it for the news summary. Now it's on to two doctors about the new cholesterol drug, people meters, inside Iran and the Sistine Chapel. Counting Cholesterol LEHRER: There was some terrific news today for people with high cholesterol counts. The Food and Drug Administration approved for sale a new prescription drug called Lovastatin. While maybe not due the label miracle drug, it has proved highly effective in reducing cholesterol levels, a known contributor to heart disease. How close to a miracle is it? And how terrific is the news of its coming -- are questions we pose now to two doctors from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas. Their research on cholesterol led to the development of Lovastatin, and earned them a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1985. They are Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Joseph Goldstein. Doctors both, welcome. Dr. Brown, how close to a miracle is it? Dr. MICHAEL BROWN, Heart Disease Researcher: Well, ''miracle'' is not really a scientific term. We think it represents a significant step forward, and the culmination of about 20 years of basic science research -- that has really led to a new class of agents that can lower cholesterol. But the exciting thing to us is that the discovery is based on scientific knowledge. This was a rational discovery. It was -- this drug was found through research that had a clearly defined target. And so far, all of the results with the drug look very promising. LEHRER: Miracle or not, Dr. Goldstein, in laymen's language, explain to me exactly what this drug does to cholesterol. Dr. JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN, Heart Disease Researcher: Well, this drug can -- inhibits an enzyme that synthesizes cholesterol, mainly in the liver. Most of the cholesterol in the body is made in the liver. And this -- the target for this drug is the enzyme that inhibits the synthesis of cholesterol. LEHRER: So it doesn't knock cholesterol off the walls of the arteries or anything like that. Dr. GOLDSTEIN: -- we will ultimately do that, but once you inhibit the synthesis of cholesterol in the liver, then a number of compensatory changes occur. And one of which is to increase the expression of this receptor on the surface of cells and molecules that pull cholesterol out of the blood stream. It pulls the bad cholesterol, this low density, lipoprotein, or LDL, the bad cholesterol. So you lower the level of LDL in the bloodstream, and that's what you actually want to do to prevent atherosclerosis, the hardening of the arteries. So the drug inhibits an enzyme, and the secondary effect is to try to lower the level of this LDL cholesterol in the blood. LEHRER: Now, the trial so far, Dr. Brown, on LDL has shown a tremendous reduction, correct? Dr. BROWN: Up to 40%, and if the drug is combined with other drugs, we can get up to a 60% reduction in LDL. LEHRER: You all may not call that a miracle, but from a layman's point of view, that would mean -- let's say somebody had -- under most -- there's a lot of dispute about this as we know. But let's say somebody had a cholesterol level of 280, which could be considered -- most people, I think, would consider that a dangerous cholesterol level -- am I right on that? Okay, if this maximum use of this drug -- it would bring that down, you would bring that down to below 200. Dr. BROWN: That's correct. And there's every reason to believe that that kind of lowering will lead to a marked reduction in the instance of heart attacks. That remains to be proven. What's been shown so far with this drug is that it dramatically lowers cholesterol -- much more than other therapies previously available. LEHRER: Including diet? Dr. BROWN: Including diet. And it -- so if one reasons from the earlier studies, there should be a fall in heart disease. But that won't be known until the drug has been used for some time. LEHRER: Are there any side effects to speak of, Dr. Goldstein? Dr. GOLDSTEIN: Well, there are no major side effects, but there are about 1% of people who take the drug who show an elevation in these liver enzymes called transaminase, that seems to be transient, but is something one has to keep one's eye on. And the other thing is capacities in the lens have shown -- LEHRER: What is that? Dr. GOLDSTEIN: These are sort of smears in the lens in the eyes -- LEHRER: Oh, I see. Dr. GOLDSTEIN: These have shown up on a smallpercentage of people, the significance of which is not known. There have been some -- these studies will take again several years to know whether these are significant. But by and large, there are no major side effects. And the drug is extremely well tolerated by patients in terms of there are no major G. I. side effects -- gastrointestinal side effects, nausea, diarrhea, that sort of thing. Dr. BROWN: It should be pointed out the drug has only been given up to four years to people. And we're talking about a lifetime of therapy. LEHRER: All right. That's where I wanted to -- is that what's involved here? You take -- how many tablets do you take a day? Dr. BROWN: One or two. LEHRER: One or two a day. Dr. GOLDSTEIN: Your whole life. LEHRER: And if you start high, then this will obviously bring it down. If you -- should everybody can take this drug, or only people with high cholesterol levels? Dr. GOLDSTEIN: Well, not everybody. I think originally the drug should be given only to people that have these genetic forms of high cholesterol, the cholesterols that are above 280 count milligrams percent. And occasionally, there are some people that have cholesterols around 260 to 280 that have significant family histories of heart disease who can't be controlled on diet. And they probably would be good candidates. But certainly we should not -- everybody shouldn't take this drug. We need a lot of experience to find out whether there are going to be side effects that haven't become apparent yet, (unintelligible) patients been treated, and everybody should be given diet first -- that's the main line of any therapy. LEHRER: Why? I knew you were going to say that. Because that was said today in the announcement that diet is still number one. My goodness if this drug is available, why bother with diet, doctor? Dr. BROWN: I think everyone thinks that diet is the natural way to prevent a disease and a drug is -- no matter how benign the drug seems, there are always going to be some degree of side effects. And so people would rather prevent the problem by what would be considered a natural form of therapy -- which is a low cholesterol, low fat diet. But we don't know. I think that the public has to be aware that there are never final answers in medicine, and that the real news won't be in on this drug until it's been out, taken by a lot of people for a long time, until doctors become comfortable with using it. And only then will they really know the place of it in the therapeutic (unintelligible). Dr. GOLDSTEIN: Also, there's this issue of genetic diversity in individual biologies, that we all have different genes, that's why we look different and have different heights, and also our metabolism and cholesterol is different because of a lot of our different genes. And so a hundred people eating the same diet will have different responses. So there are going to be some people in the population to be exquisitely sensitive to diet. So if they reduce the fat and cholesterol in their diet, they will achieve a significant lowering of that cholesterol. There are others that will not achieve this lowering. And they will (Unintelligible) no matter what they do, and they're the ones then that should be considered candidates for the drug. LEHRER: You know, gentlemen, as a result of the publicity today and people watching this program, right this moment, who have high cholesterol levels, they're going to be picking up the phone in the morning and talking to their doctors and saying, ''Okay, am I a candidate? Can I come in? I'm ready. I'm ready for some of this. '' What is your advice to doctors, to your colleagues, Dr. Brown, as to how to handle the surge that is obviously going to come within the next 24 hours or the next 24 days, the next 24 months, and so on. Dr. BROWN: I think for the next 24 hours, the drug won't be available. So that's easy. But -- LEHRER: That's an easy one, too. It's not available now, but according to the manufacturer, will be available widely within two to three weeks. Dr. BROWN: I think still the first principle when a patient presents with a high cholesterol is to try to get them to eat a low cholesterol, low fat diet. And if the cholesterol doesn't come down to an acceptable range, i. e. , in the range of 240 or so, milligrams percent, then drug therapy is considered. And it will be up to the individual doctor and patient to decide between this new drug and some of the older, established drugs that are still available and still have effectiveness in lowering cholesterol. LEHRER: Are there some new ones, even further on down the line, Dr. Goldstein, that are in the development stages that are even more semi miracle than this one? Dr. GOLDSTEIN: Well, there are -- I think, as Mike mentioned in the beginning, this is the first of a new class of cholesterol lowering drugs. And there are several by several different companies of this class that would be second and third generation drugs that are in the line, the pipeline. So we are beginning -- it's really like -- in the cholesterol field, it's really like the introduction of penicillin in the antibiotics to treat infectious diseases, in the sense that one has a new type of drug, and we just have to wait and see what happens. LEHRER: Let me ask you all finally a personal question. The two of you. How long have you been working on cholesterol? Dr. BROWN: Fifteen years. Dr. GOLDSTEIN: Same. LEHRER: What do you feel? You won the Nobel prize, that was 1985. Is this kind of the -- what is this like for you now? Dr. GOLDSTEIN: Well, it's gratifying to see the science that's been done in the laboratory being applied to the actual patient end. But, you know, it's been many different groups that have contributed to this 15 or 20 years of knowledge that has led to the understanding of how cholesterol is made and moved around the body so that one can now develop a rash of new drugs. And this may be the first of a whole group of other types of drugs -- that don't work on this principle, but some other principle. LEHRER: Just in personal terms, Dr. Brown, is it not going to excite you to think in two or three weeks on, all these people around the country are going to take a drug that could help them not have a heart attack because of the work you do? Dr. BROWN: Well, it's not only because of our work. It's -- I think that what people should understand is this represents a culmination of a whole scientific approach to cholesterol that began 25 years ago, was fostered by the National Institutes of Health, and led to discovery after discovery that built the package that allowed this drug to be developed. And it's not only our work. LEHRER: Okay. We appreciate both your honesty and your work. Thank you both very much for being with us. MacNEIL: Still to come on the NewsHour, what people meters will do to television. A look inside Iran, and an essay on the Sistine Chapel controversy. Viewers' Vote MacNEIL: This week is a turning point for the television industry. For one thing, themonopoly held by A. C. Nielson, the preeminent rating service, has ended. Starting yesterday, both Nielson and the new competitor AGB Television Research, are both measuring national TV audiences. And both are using a new system to determine ratings. The device is called ''people meters,'' and installed in homes across the country. As Jeffrey Kaye of Public Station KCET, Los Angeles, reports, people meters are shaking up the television business.

JEFFREY KAYE, KCET, Los Angeles: Advertisers want to know just who is watching television. They want to be sure that men watch ads for auto parts. That women see commercials for cleansers. Until now, they targeted their audiences by using the old system pioneered by the giant A. C. Nielson, and its legendary network of 4300 Nielson families. Selected households, such as the Wollmans in Central California, had gadgets attached to their TVs that recorded when the set was on. In order to determine who was watching what, families were asked to note their viewing choices in diaries. This method had built in flaws. For one thing, some diary keepers, including Nick Wollman, cheated. NICK WOLLMAN: And programs I like, I'll look up in the TV Guide and write them down so that, you know, my vote will be counted for that show, even if I didn't watch it.

KAYE: Complaints about Nielson's method inspired competition in the ratings business. Dissatisfaction also led to the development of a new and theoretically more reliable tool for audience measurement. Electronic diaries, called people meters. Virginia Sickbert, Bill Bennett, and their two children, Emily and Peter, agreed to become part of a people meter test group in New York. Each family member is assigned a number which they're supposed to press whenever they watch TV. They're also supposed to tap enter an exit buttons when they walk in and out of the room. It's a better mouse trap, but it's not perfect. (to the Bennetts) What if, say, a commercial comes on, you decide to go get a drink of water and come back? Do you exit and then enter again? EMILY BENNETT: No. KAYE: Bill, do you? BILL BENNETT: No (laughter). KAYE: Virginia, do you? VIRGINIA SICKBERT: No. KAYE: Peter? PETER BENNETT: No (laughter).

KAYE: People meters are shaking up the TV industry -- in part, because they are changing the way ratings have been calculated for the last 30 years. Nielson's almost yearlong tests of the meters show lower network ratings. So network executives are critical of the new system. When reporters who write about television made their annual summer pilgrimage to Southern California this year, to hobnob with television's movers and shakers, people meters were high on the agenda. ABC's head of research, Marvin Mord, complains people meter data is inconsistent. MARVIN MORD, ce President, ABC-TV: ViIf we see that a program's performance has improved or fallen off, we now have to wait several weeks to make sure that it's not just a flaw in the data from week to week -- or a fluctuation in the data from week to week.

KAYE: NBC's Entertainment President, Brandon Tartikoff, has the same complaint. BRANDON TARTIKOFF, NBC: I think the NBC corporate policy on the people meter issue is that there has been a lot of fluctuation and very erratic findings in terms of going from week to week, from month to month.

KAYE: CBS has voiced similar concerns. Its chief gripe, according to the network's head of research, David Poltrack, is that Nielson's people meter homes don't adequately represent areas where CBS does well. DAVID POLTRACK, Vice President CBS TV: CBS is very strong in the South, and we are relatively weak on the West Coast. And that bias is the most significant single demographic bias from the sample.

KAYE: Network executives fear that the new ratings measurements might cut into advertising revenues. Ratings are far from simple popularity contests. There are big bucks at stake in this numbers game. Mr. POLTRACK: Let's say if the audience is 100%, and I've got 25% of it, and ABC's got 24% of it, and I lose 1% to ABC. So I go to 24% and they go to 25. That, theoretically, would mean a shift of $90 million from my pocket to theirs. And that, I think, is a big story here. What we are dealing with is, from a research point of view, small differences -- 5%, 10% at the maximum. Statistically, they don't look that significant. But economically, they're very significant. Because we're dealing with $9 billion on the bottom line.

KAYE: That's $9 billion in advertising revenues that the networks receive each year. The larger their share of the audience, the more they can charge for commercials. Half a minute of CBS's high rated 60 Minutes, for example, may cost an advertiser as much as a quarter of a million dollars. By contrast, the same spot during Nightwatch in the early morning hours when comparatively few people are watching, can be had for $500. At CBS headquarters in New York, David Poltrack and his 42 member research team try to make sense out of a mountain of rating data. Mr. POLTRACK: We have no one switching from NBC and one tenth of a rating point -- god, it's horrible.

KAYE: Poltrack and his analyst work closely with the CBS sales department. Sales uses ratings information to price CBS commercial time. JERRY DOMINUS, Vice President,CBS TV: Okay, are you good at 5:00 o'clock tonight?

KAYE: Jerry Dominus is Vice President of Sales for CBS. He says the inconsistency between people meter numbers and the old ratings has complicated deal making, even if the inconsistency at times favors CBS. Mr. DOMINUS: My favorite example, of course, is Dan Rather. The print media had had a field day with the fact that Dan Rather's number three. Well, that's on the old system. On the new system, Dan Rather's number one. Same guy. Same network. Same station's carrying him. There used to be, in my opinion, a vice president in charge of making sense from week to week at A. C. Nielson. When you look at the new numbers, it seems that he doesn't work there any more.

KAYE: Dissatisfied with Nielson, CBS dropped its services and contracted instead with Nielson's rival in the people meter business, AGB Television Research, a British owned company, based in Columbia, Maryland. AGB already uses people meters in seven foreign countries, experience it touted to attract several advertising agencies as clients. The company has worked furiously to meet its target, two thousand people meters installed nationwide by August 31. By all accounts, AGB's decision to use people meters in this country goaded Nielson to do the same thing earlier than it had originally planned. Nielson is also promising to have 2,000 meters on line by September 2. AGB's Senior Vice President, Rupert Burks says his company gathers information on minute by minute viewing of television and cable stations, as well as video recorders. RUPERT BURKS, AGB vision Research: TeleTypically in a home we would have a data collection device such as this, hooked to the telephone circuit in the home. At 2:00 o'clock in the morning, this data collection device calls our facilities here in Columbia, and gives us the previous 24 hours of viewing in that particular home.

KAYE: AGB computers will sort the information overnight, and make data available to clients by the morning. AGB has broken Nielson's 30 year old monopoly of the ratings business, and started a turf battle. AGB undercut Nielson's prices by 50%. Nielson fought back by hiring AGB's president less than a month before the system was scheduled to go online. As AGB rushed to meet its deadline, questions persisted about the company's reliability. (to Mr. Burks) You haven't released any data yet? Mr. BURKS: No. KAYE: Your president has quit and defected to Nielson. Mr. BURKS: That's correct. KAYE: You haven't installed all of your 2,000 households, and you're not sure whether you will by September 1. Aren't those real significant questions about a company that purports to be a national rating service? Mr. BURKS: They're fair questions, they applicable questions. We believe in our design, and we believe in our approach. We have drawn those plans, and I believe we're executing them. We're on target. KAYE: You see yourself in a David and Goliath situation, I presume. Mr. BURKS: We got our slingshot.

KAYE: AGB has profited from a growing disenchantment with Nielson. But late August, of the three networks, only NBC had signed on with Nielson. We asked a Nielson spokesman for an interview to discuss people meters. But were unable to arrange one. Representatives of the A. C. Nielson Company refused to appear on camera unless they could control how the interview would be used. They said they were concerned that the NewsHour might use this story to manipulate ratings. Their conditions were unacceptable. While the networks grumble that people meters lower their ratings, other broadcasters herald the new technology. In a New York studio, MTV host China Kantner introduces a new music video. Music Television Network, a cable channel, has long complained that Nielson underreports young people. In the future, MTV will buy people meter reports from both AGB and Nielson. MTV likes people meters, because, according to company research chief, Marshall Cohen, the sample of viewers pushing people meter buttons is younger than the sample which filled out diaries. MARSHALL COHEN, Music Television Network: It will have a higher percentage of young people, kids, homes with multiple TV sets, VCRs, pay TV, and it will be more representative of America than the sample we have been living with, with the household meter. Because of that, the sample will include more people who are inclined to watch MTV.

KAYE: Other ratings companies besides Nielson and AGB are trying to get a step ahead of people meters. Arbitron distributes this tape, promising to help advertisers target consumers. [Arbitron Tape:] VOICE: For the first time, broadcasters and marketers can directly compare what American consumers watch and what they buy. Scan America.

KAYE: Arbitron has outfitted 600 Denver, Colorado, homes with a system it calls Scan America. It combines people meters hooked up to TV sets, and electronic wands that scan merchandise. The idea is to correlate commercials people watch with the products they buy. [Arbitron Tape:] VOICE: Household members simply pass the wand over the UPC symbols that manufacturers print on their packages. As each product is scanned, the wand beeps, and a light blinks to confirm the code has been read.

KAYE: The jury is still out on the reliability of household members who are expected to wave wands over every purchase, just as it is for TV viewers who are supposed to touch buttons every time they walk in and out of the room. Nonetheless, millions of dollars are being poured into finding the answers to one of the most important questions advertisers have: who is in the room watching TV? That brings us back to the New York family we met earlier. They are using what is likely to be the next generation of people meters. In addition to monitoring their button pushing, the gadget on top of their TV records their movement. It's a heat detector, and can tell how many large, warm bodies are in front of the set. It's also supposed to make a second by second rating, so that advertisers know who's watching commercials. The search is also on for the perfect method of audience measurement. That would be a system that is completely passive, one that requires no effort on the part of the viewer. Mr. BURKS: We've done all kinds of studies. We've looked at reflectivity of the eyeball, heart rate. Just recently we were working with a group a scientists that were involved in heart rate type sensing.

KAYE: Advertisers want as much information about consumers as they can obtain. And Los Angeles advertising executive Charles Bachrach seems to think anything's possible. CHARLES BACHRACH, Western International Media: Well, you've heard about some of the new technology with the -- I want to call it Big Brother's Watching -- but the next step after the people meters -- some companies are out now with machines that will tell in infrared when people come into the room. From there, I'm not sure. Maybe there's going to be something on your television that will actually screen the room, you know, to see if people are actually there -- not infrared, but actual little cameras built into the set for Nielsons so they can actually see if people are watching. Technology has advanced so far, I'm afraid to think of where it might go. Or not afraid, but maybe excited to think that maybe I can reach them in the best possible show at the best moment when they're most receptive to hear my message, so they go out and use my client's product. Bottom line is we're trying to sell product. MacNEIL: For more on how the people meters may affect both television and advertising, we have Merrill Brown, Editor of Channels Magazine, and Fred Danzig, Editor of Advertising Age. Merrill, this was the first 24 hour period in which these new people meters, AGB's meters, were supposed to be working. What did they show? MERRILL BROWN, Channels: Well, irony of ironies, Robin, after years of preparation for this day, as of suppertime, East Coast time, no numbers have been delivered, although both rating services promised that by close of business on the West Coast those numbers would arrive. So we don't know quite yet. MacNEIL: And was Nielson having the same problem as AGB? Mr. BROWN: Both companies have failed to deliver as of our air time tonight. MacNEIL: So we don't have any surprising results yet. Mr. BROWN: Not quite yet. And in fairness, it is a complicated system, and one day's ratings do not a service make. MacNEIL: Now, they've been running tests, though, for several weeks at the end of the summer. Are they showing that there are going to be big changes in the rankings of well known programs? Mr. BROWN: Well, once again, it depends whose service you talk to or study. People have a variety of opinions. There's no question about the fact that network viewing is going to be down somewhat, and cable viewing will be up somewhat. Some shows, particularly on the evening news programs, on the networks, are showing market changes. Good Morning America wins in some services, although, according to the diaries, the previous system used, they finished second to the Today Show. So it's very early to tell, but it's all over the map. As we know, Dan Rather is going to win the evening news race the first time out here, and he's finishing third these days. MacNEIL: Although, as the CBS executive said, it's the same man and the same program. Mr. BROWN: It is the same program, but it is a different viewer base, and a different technology. MacNEIL: What is more important -- from the old diary system -- is it the technology, or is it the sample change? Mr. BROWN: Well, sample change is important, no question about it. But the nature of the recording of who's watching what changes dramatically. It is said and it is conventional wisdom, that the woman of the house used to be the person filling out the diaries at the end of the week. Now, because the device is technology oriented, purportedly the man of the house, purportedly more familiar with technology, is going to be pushing the buttons, making the decisions about what they're going to punch in. So we have a whole sort of sociological change that -- MacNEIL: Who purports to make that kind of -- that men will use the technology more than women? Mr. BROWN: The rating services and the people who study the stuff at the television syndication companies and elsewhere all make that claim. And especially in the network sports business. They're very excited about that. Because men watch sports by and large, and they will be punching NFL buttons like crazy this fall. MacNEIL: Now, is that wish fulfillment coming out -- is that something that sports people like, and therefore it's going to fulfill itself? Mr. BROWN: They do like it, but the early results suggest significant increase -- MacNEIL: Men will push the buttons and women won't? Mr. BROWN: Correct. MacNEIL: That's interesting. And how is that in turn going to affect programming? Mr. BROWN: That will affect programming just by that simple example I just suggested. The ratings on sports events will look significantly better this fall and the advertising dollars are starting to flow into network sports in anticipation of just that result. That is just one example. MacNEIL: To go back to something you said earlier. You said that it would show that the network share will continue to decline -- which it has been declining over a number of years now -- and that cable will go up. Why would the people meters produce that result? Mr. BROWN: Because, among other things, the meters installed to date skew a bit toward high income people against low income people, and high income people primarily in the nation's suburbs are wired for cable, whereas the urban environments of this country are not yet quite wired for cable. So merely on that basis, you're going to see cabled homes significantly showing up in numbers that they weren't in the diary system. Also, in a confused proliferating environment of TV channels, it should be rather obvious that it's easier to push the button when you're watching that show than to remember the obscure cable program you may have been watching. It is easier at the end of the week to say to yourself, ''Aha, I watched the Bill Cosby Show. '' It is much harder to say, ''I caught that program on U. S. A. Network on Tuesday at 10:00 o'clock. '' MacNEIL: Is there a consensus anywhere that the people meters and the samples that have been designed for them -- in other words, the homes that have been selected to receive them -- are going to give in any rational way of analyzing this, a more accurate picture of who actually watched? Mr. BROWN: There is a complete consensus that it will have to be more accurate. The diary system was badly flawed. I chatted with a president of a television network just today about that, who has been in the back rooms of Nielson, realizes the shape the diary data has been in historically -- people writing down programs with the wrong networks, the wrong nights, and Nielson has had to fight that problem for years. MacNEIL: And the teenage boy we saw earlier in that program, writing down the programs he thought he would like to have watched, programs he liked. Mr. BROWN: Or the programs he thought his friends would like him to have watched. So clearly, the diary system was not particularly sound, and this is an improvement. MacNEIL: Now, Fred Danzig, in the advertising industry, is it generally accepted this is going to be a more accurate measure? FRED DANZIG, Advertising Age: I think so. I think one of the reasons is that they feel the ratings numbers, the audience numbers, will be down. Therefore, they can translate that into reductions, perhaps -- MacNEIL: Now, why will the audience numbers be down? Mr. DANZIG: I think the sophisticated technological advancements that are inherent in the people meter format, where they can now measure videocassette recorders in use, as well as videocassettes in use -- that's always been, you know, one of the marginal questions about who's recording -- MacNEIL: Who's recording off the air and who's playing back a movie they rented -- Mr. DANZIG: Right, and what are they actually watching while they're recording something, and vice versa. So I think that's going to deflate some of the audience numbers for the network. MacNEIL: And for advertisers, then they can go back to the network, or their agencies can, and say, ''Hey, wait a minute, there were actually 10% fewer people watching that program, you can't charge us this much. '' Mr. DANZIG: Right. Meanwhile they're rushing in to buy everything in sight, it seems, to protect themselves against all contingencies, since they're hedging all their bets in this material. MacNEIL: How is it that advertisers, especially big advertisers, are content with a system that results in decision worth millions -- as we heard, $90 million on a rating point there -- that turn on tiny fragments of data that may be quite arbitrary or accidental, as we've heard. Mr. DANZIG: I think that has to do with it's the only ball game in town, and everybody is playing by those numbers. Therefore there's an agreement, an implied, implicit agreement that -- MacNEIL: Let's all play this game, even though it may make you a millionaire and make you poor. Mr. DANZIG: I may win today and lose tomorrow, but since we're all playing with the same numbers, let's -- MacNEIL: It's a strange business, isn't it? Mr. DANZIG: Very strange. MacNEIL: The -- in public opinion polling, which uses the same scientific sampling techniques to establish what is representative sample, they always build in and announce a margin of error. They say, ''This is inaccurate to within 3 or 4%, depending on the size of the sample. That would be a vast error. Mr. DANZIG: And how! You don't find that here. MacNEIL: And yet, scientifically speaking, that amount of error must be there. Mr. DANZIG: I would think so. I would think any kind of sampling of that on this scale would -- MacNEIL: That's because it's the only game they're content with. Now, how do advertisers -- to pick up from what Merrill said, how do advertisers think this is going to change television as a medium for advertising? Mr. DANZIG: It may change some program content, it may lead to development of new kinds of shows to help build audiences that certain advertisers prefer, but as far as television being a preeminent selling tool, it won't change that at all. Advertisers will still have to use television for various kinds of product and services, just as they have in the diary days of Nielson. MacNEIL: Something you suggested, Merrill, a moment ago, sounded as though the networks were beginning to do what is called narrowcasting. If people were saying, ''Well, more men will be attracted to use these people meter devices; therefore, let's pile on more sports programming, buy sports programming, because then our message -- we'll know the men are there. Does that mean there's going to be more effort by producers to tailor programming to specific segments of the audience that will appeal to advertisers? Mr. BROWN: Yes, and it's already happening with the fall season which is about to begin in just a couple of weeks now. We see throughout the program lineups of the networks specific attempts to cater to people meter type audiences. People meter type audiences are young, affluent, the kinds of audiences that advertisers desperately want to reach because of their disposable income, and we see, for instance, on NBC a host of evenings which are geared directly towards reaching those demographics. On Friday night, for instance, on NBC, we have ''Rags to Riches,'' a program directed directly to people under 25, followed by ''Miami Vice,'' which is geared directly towards people 18 to 49, followed by ''Private Eye,'' a detective show, geared right to 25 to 54. The season has been put together with that in mind. MacNEIL: Okay. Merrill Brown, Fred Danzig, thank you both for joining us. Inside Iran LEHRER: Next, a rare story from inside Iran. They're rare, because American and other Western reporters are seldom allowed to report from inside that country. But a few days ago, there was one of those seldom times. Several outside journalists were invited in. Don Murray of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was one of them. His report begins from a remote front in the Iran Iraq ground war.

DON MURRAY, CBC: In the interminable war between Iran and Iraq, this is the forgotten front, the mountains of northwestern Iran, Kurdistan. Five years ago, the Iraqis captured these heights. Three weeks ago, Iranian Bassijies volunteers climbed these steep slopes under cover of darkness and took them back. Now, Iranians walk the trenches carefully dug by Iraqis, and special squads of volunteers sweep the slopes, looking for the thousands of mines left by enemy troops. In 1984, the Iranians replaced the regular army with the Bassijies. The Bassijies are literally a second Iranian army, armed mainly with faith and castoff uniforms. It's their faith in God, Khomeini, Iran and martyrdom that makes them such a potent force, a force used almost exclusively now on the Iranian front lines. In this group of devout men at arms at a camp just behind the front, the Bassijies here as old as 56, and as young as 17. He volunteered to fightfor Islam, he says, when he was 16. But he's still in school. He only comes to the front to fight on his summer holidays. The militant face of the Iranian revolution. This is the snapshot in the mind of the world -- photo of an angry country, a country obsessed by war and driven by paranoia. But this too is a snapshot of Iran -- taken on the evening of the previous day, in the heat of late summer. Families at the fun fair, children enjoying themselves. A people at play. The contrast continues. Teheran by day in summer presents the face of a city at work, not at war. The war, in fact, is in recess. In the south, on the main front with Iraq, it's simply too hot to fight. Where in January we saw scores of martyrs' crowns, seemingly on every street in the wake of bloody offensives against Basra, this time we saw just two. But the war of words, the psychological war goes on unabated. At Friday prayers, parliamentary speaker, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, constantly clutching his symbolic rifle of the warrior, spills vituperation on Iran's lengthening list of enemies: Iraq, of course, the United States, of course. But also now, Britain, France, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia. Alone against the world, Iranian leaders take an almost perverse pride in this isolation. The war effort in these circumstances is remarkable. But so, too, are the problems. In the streets and markets of the poor districts of South Teheran, there's no shortage of food in the wake of the summer harvest. But prices are out of control. The double digit inflation rages -- 20, 40, 50% a year, depending on the product. And there's unemployment. This young man returned last month from duty at the front, his arm badly mangled. He's waiting, he says, for the government labor office to find him work. He may wait a long time. Officially, unemployment stands at over 15%. At a news conference a few days ago, foreign journalists stood up to ask Prime Minister Mir Hussein Moussavi questions about the Gulf War. But Iranian reporters were barely interested in that. They wanted to know what the government was going to do about price gouging, inflation, importing. And Moussavi commented that a new, but ineffective, price control policy introduced four months ago would be reinforced with up to 12,000 price inspectors. The astonishing thing is the war economy continues to function. In back street foundries, iron and steel scrap is melted down and repoured to make spare parts for the ministry of defense and the revolutionary guards. In the same way, officials say, Iran produces almost all its ammunition and war equipment. The curiosity, the lack of hostility in Iranians towards us was just as astonishing. On the street, we were stopped by a young government worker, Mohammed Safter. He wanted to volunteer information and opinions about the war and the economy. His salary, for example, he said, is now barely enough to buy food for himself, his wife and his child. MOHAMMED SAFTER, Iranian: The life actually is difficult, and which I'm not -- we can't say we are really in our easy times. Actually, we have difficulties. We have so many things that we are purchasing that are so expensive. But still we are tolerating that.

MURRAY: Safter is intensely religious and intensely patriotic. He and his brothers had volunteered for the front. Mr. SAFTER: In my family, my younger brother has got (unintelligible) and still we like to stand for the revolution, and we're not the only ones who like to stand. So many people are -- they love to stand.

MURRAY: Martyrdom and sacrifice. This week, the banners were up for the beginning of the month of mourning, commemorating the death of Eman Hossein, one of the holiest martyrs of Shiite Islam. The presence, omnipresence of religion, in the life, politics, in war has no parallel in the Christian West since the Middle Ages. Religious zeal simply overrides more mundane problems. Listen to this man, when asked if life was more difficult today than two or three years ago. UNIDENTIFIED MAN: It is to some extent, yes. But even so, people who have less income, they are more revolutionary, and it is an amazing phenomenon.

MURRAY: A war seemingly without end, a country almost without allies, Iran appears to defy the laws of political and economical gravity as it fights on. But despite seven years of war, despite U. N. pressure to end that war, there's very little evidence here this summer that the leadership or the people of Iran are yet ready to talk of peace. Hitting the Ceiling MacNEIL: Finally tonight, we examine the controversy in the art world over whether they should be cleaning Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. We have the views of essayist Amei Wallace, art critic of Newsday, who recently saw the restoration work in progress. The exclusive footage for this essay comes from Crown Video's Return to Glory: Michelangelo Revealed.

AMEI WALLACE: St. Peter's Lutheran Church in New York City was emphatically a church of the 20th century. And so was the art commissioned in the service of God, Louise Nevelson's Chapel of Light. This is only the latest in a long tradition of church and artists collaboration, a tradition which reached its heights during four years in the Renaissance when Michelangelo climbed 60 feet to a scaffold of his own design and, head thrown back, painted the creation, the fall, the flood and Christ's ancestors on the ceiling and over the windows of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo was only 33 in 1508 when Pope Julius II asked him to decorate the chapel in which Popes were elected. To this day they celebrate mass there. Michelangelo was far from overjoyed. He was a sculptor who had earned his reputation with the Pieta, which he made when he was 25, and then secured it with his heroic David, which he completed the next year. ''Painting?'' he wrote his father once he'd begun the ceiling. ''It's not my profession. May God help me. '' It could be argued that God did indeed help Michelangelo. What he accomplished with paint in the Sistine Chapel has made it one of the most celebrated and beloved monuments in the world. The Sistine ceiling has come to symbolize the far reach of the human spirit. So it took daring to the point of hubris for Vatican restorers to decide the time had come to clean Michelangelo's ceiling for the first time in nearly 500 years. It was already in need of cleaning before he died, what with smoke from votive candles, dust from shuffling feet, salt from leaks on the roof. Instead of cleaning, restorers of the 16th century and later applied varnishes of animal glues. When the varnish darkened, they did so again, and added dark lines to heighten the contrast. That's the Sistine ceiling we all grew up with. Adam, Eve, Noah, and the prophet Zechariah were the biscuit color usually associated with the marble and stale, smelly railway stations. The animal varnish caused scholars to surmise that Michelangelo wasn't a colorist, just a sculptor in love with form. So what are we to make of the new Michelangelo being revealed by the Vatican restorers? Up close, on the scaffold directed to clean the ceiling,60 feet above the towering babble of French, English and Japanese tour guides, it is startling to see the colors of Michelangelo's palette. The vivid beard of the prophet Zechariah, a golden haired Adam, a green and blue and red robed (unintelligible), brilliant orange of the knees. As for Christ's now cleaned ancestors who crown the chapel's windows, they too are a rich riot of color. Needless to say, as with most major restoration efforts, this one is not without controversy. Some scholars, restorers and 15 American artists from Robert Montewell to the late Andy Warhol, are demanding that the Vatican stop before Michelangelo is, in their words, ''scrubbed off forever. '' They want Michelangelo left the way we've always known him. The focus of their attack is the solvent AB57, originally developed for cleaning of marble, which Vatican restorers have adapted to remove the grime from the frescoes. The restorers have been meticulous in their use of the solvent, running test patches to determine the strength of solvents to use and for how long. The solvent is applied to a small section of frescoes, usually left on for three minutes, then wiped off with cotton or sponge and distilled water. It's then left to dry for 24 hours. The next day, the process may be repeated again. It's not the frescoes themselves that critics are worried about. Frescoes are painted with watercolor mixed with lime on wet plaster, so the pigment is forever bonded with the plaster. What concerns the critics is the work Michelangelo did a secco. A secco is the Italian word for dry. Michelangelo's a secco revisions were touch ups, changes he made after the plaster had dried. These are much more fragile. The critics say that AB57 is wiping away Michelangelo's a secco along with the dirt. Although even the naked eye can spot the difference between Michelangelo's a secco and the clumsy lines of later restorers, the Vatican experts are using sophisticated technology to determine which a secco is Michelangelo's and which is not. Here, on the prophet Zechariah, where the artist made a number of a secco changes, enlarging the knee, shaping a sleeve, restorers mark the a secco on a plastic overlay. Green lines show Michelangelo's a secco work, orange changes made by past restorers. The restorations are then removed, as is being done here to Zechariah's eye, which has been shaded by a previous restorer. The first works to be cleaned were the (unintelligible) over the windows. But the most telling argument in favor of the restoration project is the newly revealed ceiling, now half completed. The new, cleaned Michelangelo didn't use dark shadows to mold his shapes as had previously been thought. He used high color the way a sculptor would to highlight, to thrust the figures at us in order to bridge 60 feet separating the ceiling from the people looking up at it. Many of the critics have never seen the new Michelangelo close up. Recently, though, a group of conservators from museum like the Metropolitan in New York and the Getty in Los Angeles, did ascend the scaffold. They declared that the newly cleaned frescoes affirmed in their words, ''the full majesty and splendor of Michelangelo's creation. '' When I climbed the scaffold, the controversy seemed far away and insignificant. Aside from the glorious color and the subtlety of Michelangelo finely wrought contouring, it was the infinite variety of Michelangelo's faces that startled and enthralled me. There's no one better than the new Michelangelo. Not even the old one. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday.The Food and Drug Administration approved for prescription sale a new drug that has proven highly effective in reducing cholesterol levels. And Iraqi war planes struck more Iranian targets in the Persian Gulf. Good night, Robin. MacNEIL: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour tonight. And we will be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.