TV RATINGS INDEX OFFERED

WASHINGTON (AP) --- Instead of having to air educational children's shows, commercial TV stations could pay public broadcasters to do it for them, a key television policymaker suggests.

Rep. Billy Tauzin is floating his proposal on Capitol Hill as Congress, the White House and federal regulators begin to grapple with what broadcasters owe the public when they start using digital technology.

When broadcasters switch to cinema-quality digital TV, the more efficient technology will offer them lots more channel space on their existing slice of the public airwaves.

The White House wants to go the other way, giving broadcasters extra obligations beyond those they have now in return for the second channel they'll receive to transmit digital signals.

Commercial stations don't contribute money to public broadcasting now. But under Tauzin's proposal, the broadcasters would help underwrite public TV when broadcasters begin offering the new digital TV format, which could appear in 1998 in the nation's largest cities.

Commercial stations' payoff: transferring some of their public-interest requirements to public TV stations, such as having to air educational shows for children, public-affairs shows and low-cost political ads.As for broadcasters' subsidy to public stations, Tauzin (R-La.) suggested diverting the roughly $30 million a year that commercial stations now pay the Treasury in fees for processing regulatory filings at the Federal Communications Commission.