Don't laugh, though the idea may seem an absurdity. But if the Walt Disney Company, owner of the ABC network, can contemplate replacing Ted Koppel and Nightline with David Letterman, why might Disney not bring in one of its own copyrighted characters to preside over a network news broadcast?

It would be cheaper and easier than hiring some other entertainment star‹say, Michael Jackson‹to read the news. Not, of course, that David Letterman is in any way comparable to a Disney cartoon character or a pop singer. But the idea of substituting the Letterman comedy show for one of the best news and analysis programs on the air comes down to the same outrageous point: giving the public more entertainment and less education and enlightenment.

It's not as if the American public is starved for entertainment. No one is being deprived of pop concerts, special-effects movies, quiz shows, the Oscar evening, sitcoms, the Olympics, other live sports or in-depth documentaries on popular rock bands and performers. Amid the numberless hours devoted to such programming on network and cable, the rare program devoted to public enlightenment‹Nightline, for instance‹stands out like a Picasso among comic strips.

Ted Koppel himself, in an extraordinarily generous Op-Ed article in The New York Times, made the point that the Disney Company‹an entertainment empire‹has no specific responsibility to bring the news to the public, while it has a deep and stated responsibility to its stockholders and investors to earn a profit. That's true; but has Disney no broader and deeper interest in the knowledge and therefore the actions of the American public? Is that public's capacity to make informed and sensible political judgments not important to the Disney Company's ability not only to turn an immediate profit but to keep on doing business‹and earning profits‹in a free and democratic society?

The issue does not seem to be that Nightline fails to make money from its substantial advertising revenues; it does. Rather, the problem is that Nightline apparently attracts older viewers, while Letterman or some other entertainment program probably would appeal to a younger audience, one more coveted by advertisers, who therefore would pay more for a spot, or for multiple spots, than they are willing to pay for advertising on Nightline.

This is commercialism run wild. If Nightline made no money, so that it was a financial burden on ABC and Disney, canceling it might be defensible, despite its educational value to the viewing public. But to cast such a program aside because it figuratively makes only $100 while an entertainment program in the same time slot might make $150, owing to the younger set of viewers coveted by advertisers, would be to vindicate those who insist that American capitalism has no values but greater profits and no concern for the public interest.

It cannot be in the self interest of the Disney Company to propagate that view of its own business and of American business generally. So whatever its immediate effect on the Disney balance sheet, the blatant elevation of entertainment over education would be damaging to the company in the long term. And though it is too little realized in American business circles, the long term does exist and does matter; quarterly earnings are not the only measure of success.