Part II Of Gannett’s Med Series To Air Oct. 7-8

Buoyed by the response to part one of its three-part The Cutting Edge medical series, Gannett Broadcasting will air part two on its stations next week.

The series marks the first time Gannett has created and aired its own original series across all of its 22 TV stations in primetime. The second installment, The Cutting Edge: Beating Breast and Prostate Cancer, will air Oct. 7 and Oct. 8 in primetime slots.

Gannett also syndicated the second installment to CBS and Hearst Television, which have promised to run it on their stations sometime in October.

A Gannett spokeswoman said CBS and Hearst are not paying for show. It was “a cooperative effort that hopefully lays the foundation for future projects by exposing the show to a large national audience,” she said.

For the series, Gannett reporters visited top hospitals around the country to learn about cutting-edge medical and surgical technology. The series also features personal stories of patients battling cancer and heart disease.

The series was produced by Powderhouse in Boston and Gannett Broadcasting, with John Rice of Powderhouse as executive producer.

Gannett is generating revenue from the series through local advertising, said Brooke Spectorsky, senior vice president of Gannett Broadcasting. “It’s really at the request of our stations to provide some targeted content on medical,” Spectorsky said. “Medical is a very active advertising category in all of our markets.” 

The first episode in the series, The Cutting Edge: Fighting Fat, aired Sept. 7 and was viewed by nearly 400,000 TV households, according to Gannett.

The three episode, The Cutting Edge: Attacking Heart Disease, will explore the future of diagnostic and treatment technology for heart disease and air on Gannett stations late this month.

It will focus on some of the newest preventative therapies, new surgical techniques, as well as lifestyle changes that people can make now to improve heart health before it ever becomes a problem.

Gannett is promoting the series across platforms – on-air on all 22 stations, online through its social media pages and 18 microsites, and in print through ads in its USA Today.

The station group is also promoting the series through live text chats to connect consumers with local medical experts.

The programs include “snipes” – pop-up messages during the program encouraging viewers to log on to the microsites for more detailed information. 

Gannett is also encouraging conversations about the series real-time on Twitter with the hashtag #cuttingedgemed and on its Facebook page, Cutting Edge Med.