Syndies, Stations In Post-‘Oprah’ Promo Push

Now that the long, ritual farewell to the Oprah Winfrey Show has finally ended, syndicators with replacement shows or with existing shows in Oprah’s key evening news lead-in slot are moving quickly to scoop up the show’s faithful, but abandoned viewers.

“Research shows that we have a six-week window to change established viewing habits, so we started early,” says Susan Kantor, executive VP of marketing for Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution, which has been promoting The Ellen DeGeneres Show as Oprah’s successor since early May. “We ran four spots that pay tribute to Oprah, because  Ellen has a lot of reverence for Oprah. But the subtle message was: Oprah’s leaving but Ellen’s here.”

Warner Bros. and its rivals outlined some of their plans for grabbing Oprah’s viewers in meetings with local marketing executives at the PromaxBDA Station Summit in Las Vegas last week.

“We’re asking stations to take advantage of all those summer avails right away,” says Kantor. “Our national and local paid media will kick in closer to our September launch.”

September marks the start of Ellen’s ninth season and Warner Bros. promises that her return will feature a full arsenal of publicity support ranging from national magazine covers to an armada of celebrity guests. They’ll also be redoubling daily outreach to stations. “I have at least 10 opportunities for a news hit per day,” says Allyson Terry-Goldsby, Ellen’s director of affiliate marketing.

“Any time there’s a local angle, it’s a story for a local newscast or station websites. Her Web videos and funny movie trailers have often spiked as the No. 1 hit to station Web traffic,” says Terry-Goldsby, who estimates that Ellen will claim 17 of Oprah’s former time slots this fall.

Warner Bros.’ confidence in Ellen is not mere wishful thinking. It’s based on a Magid and SmithGeiger study that showed that Oprah viewers feel that Ellen had the most things in common with Oprah of all the current daytime talk show hosts. Indeed, Oprah viewers reported they most often turned to Ellen when Oprah was in repeats.

In other time periods, Warner Bros. expects a significant number of Oprah viewers to seek out its new talk show featuring Anderson Cooper, whose fan base includes a large number of minority viewers who remember and revere Cooper’s relentless reporting from storm-ravaged New Orleans and Haiti.

With Judge Judy and Dr. Phil, CBS Television Distribution may be in the best position to soak up Oprah viewers. “Judge Judy is already the No. 1 show in daytime and Dr. Phil is the No. 1 talk show,” says Mike Mischler, EVP of marketing, and he’s right. Dr. Phil’s 3.1 average household rating this May was second only to Oprah’s and was up 11% over last year.

But Mischler did not want to show his hand. “Rest assured we are not going to rest on our laurels. We’ll be putting our full advertising support behind Dr.Phil in the fall. You’ll see a campaign for the show launch this summer.”

Dr. Phil stations briefed on CBS’s promotion plans at the Promax station summit were upbeat. “We’re replacing Oprah with Dr. Phil,” said one station marketing chief who requested anonymity. “We don’t need to convince Oprah viewers to like Dr. Phil. He spun off from Oprah and stands on his own. It’s just a matter of increasing the amount of promotion he receives.”

Another major market promo chief agreed: “CBS and Dr. Phil do absolutely anything we want. They support us financially with co-op media buys, they create custom promos and Dr. Phil does station visits. We expect more of the same.”

But it’s another Oprah spin-off, fifth-place talker Dr. Oz from Sony Pictures Television, which might yet pull off an upset and claim the Queen’s abandoned crown. Although the cardiothoracic surgeon was down slightly in May — 8% year to year — he enjoys two advantages over his rivals. He’s picked up the lion’s share of the time slots vacated by Oprah, 83, and he received the public blessing of Oprah herself.

“Oprah Winfrey graciously created for us a handoff spot we ran during the Oprah finale on May 25,” says Kim Hatamiya, EVP of marketing for Sony Pictures Television. In the spot, Winfrey gets right to the point and tells viewers they’re in good hands because Dr. Oz will be taking over her spot. Like Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz is co-produced by Oprah’s Harpo Productions.

Sony wasted no time capitalizing on the endorsement, especially in New York. The day after Oprah’s last show, Fox affiliate WNYW moved Dr. Oz to 4 p.m. to blunt WABC’s debut of First at Four, the local newscast that took Oprah’s longtime slot. To support Dr. Oz, Sony “did a huge push, including an afternoon rush hour stunt, sponsored by Walgreens,” says Hatamiya.

More than 400 taxi cabs offered free rides to promote Oz. And in one of the cabs, Oz himself greeted riders and took their blood pressure. A week later, Sony was jubilant. “In the first 10 days of the changeover, Dr. Oz raised the 4 p.m. household rating by 69%,” says Hatamiya. Even more encouraging, the 5 p.m. news was up 13% at WNYW.

Sony’s success in securing news lead-in slots appears to have inspired the news-focused promotion strategy presented last week at the Station Summit. Almost every day, Sony will provide stations with “a robust package” of turnkey news features voiced by Dr. Oz, along with additional video clips, animation and statistical data.

Neither Sony nor its client stations seem concerned that too much focus on health might limit Dr. Oz’s appeal to former Oprah viewers. Quite the opposite. “The appeal of health topics to news viewers is so high that we’ll be able to integrate content from that show into our newscasts — and vice versa. They want affiliates to supply content,” says David Baumann, director of creative services at WXYZ Detroit, one of the Scripps stations replacing Oprah with Dr. Oz.

“Besides, Oz has a great sense of humor. And they’re making him available to do almost anything to promote the show,” says Baumann who is especially enthusiastic about the sponsorable vignettes Sony will supply to stations. “The health care sales category has grown tremendously, so we can sell an advertising schedule that promotes Dr. Oz in all dayparts.”

Several times a year, Sony will supplement the vignettes and news features with larger self-help health initiatives with still more content for news, sales and live community events.

But as stations and syndicators prepare to battle to capture former Oprah viewers, one formidable potential competitor has yet to announce her daytime plans — Oprah herself. Oprah and her partner, Discovery Communications have made it clear they plan quick action to boost the low ratings of Oprah’s eponymous network. But how? The industry may find out more Thursday when Oprah addresses the NCTA’s Cable Show in Chicago.